RV-7 N890GF

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  • Started Work On Snorkel

    With the cowl done, and the baffles in progress, I decided to start on fitting the snorkel. I started by fabricating a spacer to fit in the inlet hole. This allowed me to temporarly align the snorkel to the inlet. The starter motor had a lug that was interfering with the snorkel, so I removed…

  • Began Fitting Baffles

    With the cowl complete, I can really dial in the baffles. I started by installing all the baffles on the engine. I trimmed several pieces around the aft part of the engine to better fit, as well as around the valve covers. Once the baffles were installed, I put the lower cowl on. Immediately I…

  • Finished Cowling

    The last step in finishing the cowling installation is adding the SkyBolts to the split-line to join the top and bottom cowls. I started out by marking the lower and upper cowl split-lines where they overlapped in order to make the top and bottom edges mate perfectly. Once Everything was marked, I used a long…

  • Continued Cowling

    With the top cowl clecoed in place I was able to drill out the 15/32″ holes for the SkyBolt grommets. I’ve spaced out the holes resulting in 17 skybolts across the top cowl. I drilled each other hole to full size with my unibit and then full size with a 15/32″ bit. I then placed…

  • Began work on Cowling

    I started work on the cowl. I’m using the SkyBolt fastener system for my cowling. I began with the top cowl and alignment with the spinner. I installed the firewall flanges to support the top cowl. I’m using 3″ spacing along the top center and then it transitions to 3.25″ spacing towards the sides. The…

  • Underside Empennage Fairing

    I spent some time working on the underside fairing for the tail. I decided to go with the standard Van’s design using the aluminum close out and the rubber seals. It needed some trimming to get a consistent gap along the bottom of the horizontal stab, but once it was in place, I then installed…

  • Finished Canopy Fairing

    I was able to finish the canopy fairing. It took several iterations of sanding/filling/priming/repeat, but I got the fairing to a place that far exceeds what I thought I would be able to achieve. This is the final step in the canopy fabrication. I have some minor paint clean up that I’ll do as well,…

  • Tail Intersection Fairing & Canopy Fiberglass

    In my continued expansion into the Fiberglass world, I decided to work on the Tail Fairing. The initial fit was not perfect, but I’ve tried my best with sanding and a heat gun to try and massage the fiberglass into a better position around the tail. After a few iterations of sanding to get the…

  • More Finishing Again

    The last month has seen quite a lot of progress on lots of small items. Every trip to the hangar involves more fiberglass and epoxy sanding and finishing. The fiberglass tips for the whole tail are now complete, barring the horizontal and vertical stabilizer tips being primed. I also completed the lower rudder fairing, which…

  • Fiberglassing

    I’ve been spending the last few weeks finishing up the tail fairings. Lots of filling and sanding – repeat. Here is the lower rudder fairing. I sanded off the molding for the tail light and then added some foam, epoxy filler, and a fiberglass layer. This will need some iteration until I’m satisfied. Also on…