Justin's Raven

[Jean Crous]

Hi Justin is it prudent to ask : How is the "other" 90% comming along
Keep it up
Jean

[justin.schoeman]

Work has been eating into my evenings, so not too much progress. Mainly be finishing off the finicky bits at the bottom of the firewall. Engine breather, gascolater blast cooler, and firewall fairings:

As usual, not much to show for lots of work (it ends up being quite a bit of work when you make everything twice - once to figure out what doesn't work, and once to do it properly).

Most of the interior upholstery is also complete.

I am going down to PE tomorrow evening for a class reunion, but I hope to still get the oil leak fixed, and reroute all the engine wiring this weekend.

[justin.schoeman]

More work on the interior (pic below). Just needs the carpet and 'boot' for the stick. Discovered some minor problems though:

1) Even with the pedals adjusted as far as possible, I still can't quite push the pedals all the way. Will need to build some spacers to angle the seat back a little more.
2) Once the seats are adjusted, my knees interfere with the throttle and mixture knobs. Will need to make new knobs that angle slightly upwards.

Started running the oil through filter paper to make sure nothing funky is happening, but it is a slow process.

Pretty much everything should be done next weekend. I hope.

[t-bird]

Any updates ?

[justin.schoeman]

Somehow I just don't seem to make any progress. (At least it seems that way.) Only manage to fit in around 20 hours a week, and that gets sucked up by tiny little tasks.

The biggest task for the past week, or so, was getting the spinner trimmed and fitted - and even this was more of a mission than expected. It turns out the prop hub was machined with a 100.6mm PCD. Yup, not the 101.6mm VW PCD, or the 100mm Rotax PCD, but 100.6mm... After chatting with Jean, I decided to drill the holes out to 9.5mm so that they can accomodate the prop bolts at 101.6mm . This entailed making a drill jig. I don't have much scrap steel lying around, but brazed a bolt onto a steel plate, and then drilled a guide hole through the middle of the bolt. Centered the drill jig on the existing holes using the taper at the back end of the drill bit, clamped and drilled the holes out. Measures up perfectly accurate, so hopefully worth the effort...

Next, I turned the front spinner bulkhead down fractions of a mm at a time, until it was a perfect fit. I then taped a piece of cardboard to the front and rear spinner bulkheads, and used masking tape to outline the prop profile

Used this to cut out the spinner. Drilled and fitted nutplates, and bonded steel washers into the spinner (curing up now).

After all that, it seems somehow I measured up wrong, and I still need to trim about 2mm off the bottom edge of the spinner/rear bulkhead. So still a good couple of hours to finish the spinner.

Still working on brackets to route the spark plug wires around the exhaust pipes. Another tiny task that is taking much longer than expected (not enough mounting points, and not much wire length to play with).

Running away this weekend, but the last slog will continue when I get back .

[t-bird]

Hi Justin

Fly it without the spinner.
The upholstery looks really nice.

Have you started with the CAA paperwork ?

[justin.schoeman]

Hi Justin

Fly it without the spinner.
The upholstery looks really nice.

Have you started with the CAA paperwork ?

Unfortunately, there is a largish unsupported area behind the spinner - it won't take an real pressure there, so I wouldn't try it without the spinner.

Haven't yet done the CAA paperwork - on my AP's advice. Seems like he is a wise man, or I would have been paying CAA reg fees for 2 years already, expecting to be finished in a week, or two!

[justin.schoeman]

Project has suffered a minor setback.

I got home on Sunday evening to a 'Winter Wonderland' scene. White driveway, white lawn, white roofs. Looked like a classic winter picture. Had a solid 2" of hail covering the entire house.

Unfortunately, soon after getting home, I discovered that the builders who had built the workshop were complete <censored>... Some of the sidings had been blown off, and some roof sheeting lifted, dumping a few hundred liters of rain into the workshop. Aside from the ceiling collapsing, most of my books, notes, plans, etc have been ruined. The radio panel was also in the shop, but fortunately in only got splashed.

I am still busy putting things back together, and I don't really expect to get any work done on the plane for the next few weeks .

[Rudix]

Project has suffered a minor setback.

I got home on Sunday evening to a 'Winter Wonderland' scene. White driveway, white lawn, white roofs. Looked like a classic winter picture. Had a solid 2" of hail covering the entire house.

Unfortunately, soon after getting home, I discovered that the builders who had built the workshop were complete <censored>... Some of the sidings had been blown off, and some roof sheeting lifted, dumping a few hundred liters of rain into the workshop. Aside from the ceiling collapsing, most of my books, notes, plans, etc have been ruined. The radio panel was also in the shop, but fortunately in only got splashed.

I am still busy putting things back together, and I don't really expect to get any work done on the plane for the next few weeks .

Sorry to hear about the setback Justin! It must be so frustrating, so close.......

Hope things are back on track soon, can't wait to see your baby in the air!

Fly safe (and soon)
Rudi

[t-bird]

Oeeeee CAA is going to love the "most of my books, notes, plans, etc have been ruined" paper work.
Sorry to hear about your misfortune.

[justin.schoeman]

Wheeled her out into the garden today to trial fit the wings, and make/fit the various pieces of attachment hardware, and joint covers.

All went well, and looking good!

Just need to clean up the FWF wiring, and get the AP out for a final inspection. (And do some final painting...)

[JvTonder]

Looking good!

[t-bird]

Very nice Justin.
I hope to see her in the air before Christmas.

[Rudix]

She is really looking good Justin, soon you will be flying her!

Well done,
Regards,
Rudi

[justin.schoeman]

Finishing off the last significant task today - post curing the cowl. (The epoxy I have used is good to ~160C, but only if post cured at 100C for 4 hours.)

Since I have vague plans of building the KR Super 2, I decided to go ahead and build a (semi) decent post cure oven.

For the main structure, I followed the instructions 'Think Pink' - and stapled 100mm aerolite to 1mx1m wooden frames. (If I do decide to build the KR Super 2, I would need another 4 frames to be able to enclose all the necessary structures.) The frames are simply held together with heavy duty elastic bands. Cheap and cheerful (and a rather grim shade of pink, but anyway...).

The heating unit is a simple array of 10 x 100W light bulbs (1kW), covered with a shield to minimize radiant heating. An array of 8 PC fans is used to keep the air circulating, and a simple thermostat is used to control the temperature.

The PC fans are only rated to 80C, but the hope is that with 8 of them, at least a few will still be working at 100C . A quick test run got the oven up to 100C in around 10 minutes, and 5 of the fans were still working when I opened it after another 10 minutes. So hopefully it will work...

Anyway, the oven is loaded, and at 70C already (manually turning it up by 5C every 15 minutes). First hole will be 2 hours at 80C, and then 4 hours at 100C. (Gonna be a late night .)

Once it is cured, it is ready for painting. Just need to get the prop to Piet Prop for a service, and we should be ready to rock!