Girl's got back !

Lost steam here for a couple days. Pulled a muscle in my back and that slowed me down. I also started too many things on the fuselage and got a little overwhelmed by how much remains to be completed. Wednesday evening and Thursday morning I helped complete the Don's (pipe) Dream Motor. Here's a shot of what 8K will get you.

Pretty nice . Here's a short video of the start up before the first flight.

I started to complete some of the details on the fuselage. I installed the rudder and rigged the control cables. It's funny how the smallest job can take so much time, for some reason the left front rudder pedal would not return to forward when pulled aft. At first I thought it was just gummy with old grease, so I lubed it, no help.
So I disassembled it and cleaned it all out and regreased, still stiff ? So I took it apart again, put washers in to make the clamps a little larger, still stiff ? After 2 hours I finally notice that the wood floor boards are rubbing on the return spring, apart it comes again, die grinder out the floor board and it works like new.

I did not do that nasty grinding where the engine mount bolt is installed.

 Here it is post modification, works great now.

With that completed I was doing some hanger flying and noticed that the modified rear stick was going to be a problem. The way it is bent aft and lengthened if you have any gut at all, it would get in the way of full aft stick. Scott had an original stick left over from his project. This shot shows them both.

 The bent stick is cool but just not practical.

While I was working on the controls, I installed the neat aileron pulley covers . Unfortunately there was no way to remove the big wood washers . The floor boards are permanently installed.

I also installed the fuel tank and figured out the plumbing and the shut off cable routing.

I worked on fitting the boot cowl a little each day, it's a really big job, especially since the previous mechanic screwed it up. Every hole they drilled (in a brand new Univair cowl) is in the wrong place. It takes extra time to work around their mistakes. It's worth saving though. I still have not figured out how to install the boot cowl with the tank installed. The Univair tank has a longer filler neck and I can't force the cowl over it much less install the sealing grommet. I'll look in my Cub Club news letters for the secret.
Today the weather was beautiful for working outside so I brought the tail home and installed it to check fit.
I needed to make patterns for the tail gap panels that are in really sad shape. This also gave me a chance to fit all the tail bolts and make sure I had not lost any pieces. The new Univair stainless steel brace wires are really sweet. Here are some shots of in together.

With the tail on I could fit the trim panels and mark them for patterns.

My friend Scott stopped by this afternoon and helped me install the brakes. I had decided to just go with these in Alodine and that will be fine for now. I may paint them later. They will work the same either way.
Here they are all rebuilt.

Here they are installed.

I also worked on the brake lines and made the cover plates for the brake line exit from the fuselage, they came out sweet.

  No weekend would be complete without a little paint striping ! So I got these parts ready for paint. I have a plan for the raised lettering on the control wells, I will let you know if it actually works!

I plan to complete the boot cowl this week, if I could just get some help out of this guy.

It's Red

Got an early start today to beat the heat, got the shop all covered up to shoot the red paint. I mixed 2 cups of Stits Aerothane Red, 10 oz red base, 2 oz of flattener, and 4 oz of activator. While waiting for this to induct I went over all the tape edges , then wiped with Stits 2210 cleaner, then just before paint , a tack rag. I sprayed as per the instructions and it came out great, no runs or sags and only about 4 spots where the paint bleed under the tape. I really could have used some retarder , it started to get hot and the HVLP requires extra thinner anyway.I thinned the paint about 50 % and it sprayed OK. Here it is after spray and before tape removal. 

 Notice the tape markers on the fuselage side, I found it best to paint the long stripes in sections, and these marks kept me from piling up too much paint at the overlaps.
I had a little paint left over so I painted the oil dipstick Red. I know it's supposed to be yellow but I had the red paint mixed! It came out great.

I waited about  1 1/2 hours and removed the tape.  I have found that it's best to wait until the paint is tack free. That way if the paper should accidentally touch the paint you don't have a disaster.I ended up with a pretty good pile of Hazmat.

After lunch  I moved the fuselage outside to allow for cleaning the shop and folding all the plastic sheet..

I fitted the rudder to check the alignment to the paint strips. I think it came out pretty good, I might still paint the rudder horn red .

Had to knock off early to go help Scott with his Don's dream motor.Will start something new tomorrow. Here is my shop helper watching paint dry.

Tape and Plastic

Hoped to get the stripe on the fuselage painted today, but had some distractions and it did not get done.
Started the day cleaning out the garage to get the fuselage in. That went smooth until a stray Beagle and a Lab showed up to chase cats. My 13 lb helper ended up 30 ft up in a tree.

Well there was no way he was going to climb back down, so out came the ladder and the pruning tools and up I go.

I have to add that the girl that came for the dogs did offer her husband to help, but we got-er-done. Here he is walking back to the shop with attitude.

This could have been dicey if the cat did not trust me unconditionally. Now back to the airplane stuff.
The fuselage really fills my dinky shop, but I got it in and set up for painting.

I then did my best to follow the original stripe lines with 1/4 inch fine line tape, then edged it all with 1 1/2 Frog tape.

  This took about 4 hours,  after dinner break and some errands, I got out the plastic and the really cheap? masking tape and went to work. I had to mask off the entire airplane. Here is the end result.

Tomorrow we paint the Aerothane Red stripes.