J230 @ YSWG

[Captain]

The best spray booth in town has been in constant use all week, so we have it tomorrow for the day. Almost lost a week on this but we think it worth the wait to get the best booth that will hopefully allow my spray painters to do the best job.

 

The fuselage isnow on the trailer ready to be tied down a couple more times and head into town in the morning.

 

The painters expect to spend early tomorrow morning doing final masking then spray in the arvo.

 

An exciting time.

 

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Note that both of my specialist security consultants are in this shot.

 

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Wings are now substantially complete. Just the filler fitting to go in when I turn them over tomorrow.

 

You will also note below that R2D2 has taken a part time job supervising the work on the wings.

 

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Captain

 

 

 

 

 

[Captain]

Going for a quietearly morning Sunday drive into town.

 

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In the booth ready to be masked and sprayed. No it's not going to be baked. Just using it as a spray booth only.

 

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Captain

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Roger]

Jeez I cant wait to see the finished item....it should be a showstopper!

 

Roger

 

 

[Captain]

I doubt it will be that good Roger, but I've spec'd that I want it "nice" ... subject to the fact that you can't put too many coats on an aircraft for weight reasons. It won't be show-car standard but it should be OK.

 

And it's now white, as evidenced below, after the 1st coat, so we are making progress past another milestone.

 

Or is it "millstone". I always get those two mixed up.

 

I need to be there to take it out of the booth at 6.00 am tomorrow and below are some more pics of theactivity today.

 

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John & Adam, who are doing the spraying and have been advising me on preparation requirements & procedures.

 

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Captain

 

 

 

 

 

[Captain]

Fuselage is sprayed and back home in the shed to allow the solvents to flash off for a week. Windows are to be unmasked this evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Admin]

WOW - does she look good

 

 

[Guest danda]

Its great almost there.

 

Don

 

 

[Ross]

A big step well done Geoff. She looks great. How many top coats did they put on? Where are the security staff?

 

Regards

 

Ross

 

 

[Guest P.A.]

A big step well done Geoff. She looks great. How many top coats did they put on? Where are the security staff? Regards

He's there.

 

 

 

[Captain]

Well spotted Peter, but there is a problem with the Security Staff. They say that they have both become acustomed to the defence force grey colours, including the dog being covered in Grey every time she goes to sleep in the shed while I'm working. Both are demanding that the company supply sun glasses to counter Standox's brilliantwhite.

 

Have given them both "notice" to lift their games.

 

The same as when my wife complained again about the instrument panel in the kitchen .... and just because we had guests coming to dinner. I gave her 25 years notice and told her to get her kitchen out of my instrument fitout room.

 

The bruises are healing.

 

3 coats on the fuselage Ross. The experts tell me that it doesn't really start to look swish until 3, so bugger the weight penalty. After the above, my wife won't want to fly with me and all I need to do now is hope & lobby for the RAA gets 700 kgs MTOW.

 

Regards

 

 

[Captain]

Ross.

 

Thanks again for your phonecall this morning. Nice to have a chat.

 

As a matter of interest re the number of coats and to provide some base data onpaint weight for any other builders...... 3 good coats on a 230 take 6 - 7 litres of the base material, which weighs 4.9 kgs for 3.5 litres incl the can.

 

So we have added about something like 10 kgs in the finish coat (for the fuselage only), excluding hardener etc, so it's probably a tad more.

 

Not an inconsiderable weight penalty just to look pretty and to massage my ego.

 

Best I go on a diet to counter that 10 kgs.

 

Regards Geoff Captain

 

 

[Guest P.A.]

I understand that paint will loose some weight as it used due to it drying out. So 10kgs of wet paint does not mean you need to loose 10kgs, more like don't eat 10Kgs of Pizza's. :yuk:

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

I'd prefer an aircraft that looked shmicko than one that's a few kilo's lighter. You can't have a lightweight aircraft that looks absolutely perfect in terms of paint. The factory / factory assist Jab's can sometimes be a bit light-on in terms of paint and they look ok at first but tend to fade after a year or so, particularly the LSA55's. The new factory J160's appear to be holding a little better - they use a Protec paint, however the shinier finish (more of an arctic white) does show up more blemishes. The LSA's are a bit more "yellow" looking which tends to worsen over time. The newer white is tending to show up a little more " orange peel" effect which most people don't seem to like.

 

If you can get that nice shiny look from an arctic white without orange peel you have done well and the $6.5k+ you spent on paint and painting was worth it.

 

 

[Captain]

SSSHHHHHHHHHHH Clem. I told Janenne it was 50 bucks with change.

 

 

[Guest P.A.]

It's amazing what can be bought for a slab of beer.

 

 

[Captain]

You hear some horror stories about draw string in the wings and pulling the aileron cables, but thankfully mine went in pretty easily witha littlehelp from the co-pilot.

 

Have told her that because of her great assistance today I will allow her to join the 5,280 ft high club once we get it flying. Some of you more experienced blokes might please advise, do I you think I now need to get an auto-pilotto facilitatethat? We courted in a Mini Cooper S, so a J230 should be a breeze, but what do you do if you get a cramp at that height? Die happy I guess.

 

The cables for the wing strobes also piggy backed their way through with the aileron cables. Good stuff to have them in, but I think I'll bring them out thrueach wing root in a separate hole so that they aren't under any pressure from the aileron cables.

 

Geeeez the shed always looks more untidy in photos than in real life. What a mess.

 

Regards to all

 

Captain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest AusDarren]

No wires through the wings for the nav lights?

 

of course then you'd have to stencil the Dreaded VH on the side

 

its so easy to sit here and drool...

 

its really looking great.

 

Regards,

 

AusDarren

 

 

[Ross]

Geoff

 

I can tell you that the Mini Minor did not have anything like the acceleration of the Mini Cooper but it wore out a lot of rubber - on the front tyres.

 

Regards

 

 

[Captain]

The assembly & fitting of all wing components & fuel tank penetrations is now complete (YIP-BLOODY-PEE) .... save for the fitting ofthe fuel takeoff & breather connections that need to wait until after painting.

 

Just waiting for the aileron cable fairings to dry after glassing them on this arvo, and will start to turn the shed white again tomorrow with preparation of all wing components for painting.

 

Plan tomove the fuselage over into the garage tomorrow morning to keep it clean and to do final fuselage fitout each evening, so if I don't post any more updates after Dec 9th, you will know that the copilot has taken a dim view of that initiative and I'll probably be buried in a makeshift grave in thelucerne paddock as that is where the softest digging is. (I guess thatthis para is the equivalent of a kitbuilders pre-completion SARWatch?)

 

Regards & wish me luck

 

Geoff (3)

 

Captain

 

 

 

 

[Ross]

Fantastic! Great work Geoff. How much sleep have you had in the last couple of days? May all your ploblems be very little ones for the rest of th project!

 

I cannot see much sign of the security staff!

 

Regards

 

 

[Guest Vigilant]

Geoff - I just got home from a week annual re qualification at the Academy and if your co pilot tries to blow you up give me a call .

 

The progress you have made over the week is great and you are the envy of most here I would say. It is inspirational to sse how good a job you can do at home if you have the patience. Well done!

 

Cheers Stuart

 

 

[Captain]

Cancel Sarwatch.

 

Have survived, and as soon as I explained that I could have taken over the garage 6 months ago .... like Ross has in Leeton.... all was forgiven.

 

Thanks for your offer Stuart. One of our bottom paddocks was the scene of "The Kapooka Accident" when 25 blokes were killed in a demolition training accident in 1945, so I am always suspicious when I get invited to go there by the bride/co-pilot.

 

Had a HUGE day today. Dawn to Dusk .. and it topped 37 C in the shed, but progressed lots as shown in the pics.

 

A very satisfying day.

 

Garage Coup successful .... just call me Geoff Bianimarama.

 

One security specialist has been relocated.

 

Gave all 3 doors a further wet rub down with extra fine paper ready for final painting hopefully later this week with the elevator & rudder ... see below.

 

Rubbed, etch primed and final primed the rudder & elevator.

 

Masked all items on the wings and did a first pass over one side of one wing.

 

I told ya it was going to get dirty again, and that's just pass No 1 over 25% of the wing surface area. Each side will probably need 3 or 4 passes, but that's probably just me be too pinickety.

 

Captain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Captain]

Thanks for that Chris. It is very encouraging.

 

Have done another pass over the surface finish of the elevator and wet rubbed the inside of the doors. They are just about up to standard.

 

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Have also attacked the final location and installation of all key items on,and penetrations thru, the firewall.

 

That includes:

 

Mounted Powermate, installed solenoid, located throttle cable penetration& fitted wiring penetration.

 

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Throttle cable, fuel line bulkhead fitting and choke cable:

 

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Carb heat cable & 2nd wiring penetration (as demanded by the number of Dynon sensors).

 

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Cabin Heater:

 

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And aligning all of those holes with the location of the panel inside the firewall. With the large new GA panel and with the panel mounted throttles, the back of the panel is in a different position to most of the pics in the instructions so a little care was needed:

 

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And a couple of general views:

 

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Must remember to take note of this as the excitement builds:

 

Captain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ross]

Hi Geoff

 

I like the look of yourmetal cabin heater although if it is made of pure aluminium the melting point is about 660 degrees C.Plain carbon steel is about 1400 degrees C. I had to look them up in my1963"Machinery's Handbook 16th Edition". That might beabove a fuel fire temp of about 1000 degrees C. Is the cabin heater epoxied onto the firewall?

 

The body of the cabin heater supplied to meis fibre glass so I have not installed it. I don't like the idea of a possible blow torch like fire applied to the fuel lines on the wrong side of the main fuel isolating valveor onto my feet under the instrument panel. I shall have to investigate the metal one.

 

Are you going to install any soundproofing on the back of the firewall?

 

Mine has a layer of foam glued to the back and then a layer of felt glued to that making it a little more difficult to add extra things through the firewall. But the soundproofing compressed easily with the fibreglass panel pulled into it withthe bolts through the firewall which also adds a bit more security to the attachment of the stainless steel firewall.

 

Setting up the steering rods tothe rudder pedals so they clear the firewall and coordinating that with the rudder offset is a bit painfull as all the rods have right hand threads on both ends. They also move vertically and horizontally when activated trough the firewall!You have to disconnect themfrom at least one endto change the length. One advantage to this is that if they come loose the length does not change unless they actually undo at one end!

 

I found the rudder cable movement marginal making it very tedious to get all the movements and stops set correctly as there was virtually no available adjustment.

 

To check the rudder movement, I placed an L shapedpiece of light gauge tin plate under the rudder with the long leg horizontal up the side of the vertical stabiliser. The hinge point is roughly at the bottom of the right angle formed by the sides of the L.

 

With a pencil I marked on this plate the position of the rudder when against each stop and also in the neutral pedal position which is offset from the zero rudder position. So I ended up with a plan view of the rudder movement compared to the longitudinal axis of the aeroplane.

 

ThenI could readily measure the angle of movement of the rudderbetween the lines drawn on the plate and the angle of the offset.It seemed far easier and more accurate than the method described in the construction manual and you can do it in comfort standing on the floor!

 

There should be no load on the cable when the pedals are on their stops and the rudder is on its stops. This is difficult to check on your own - you need very long arms!

 

If I remember the numbers correctly from the"J160 construction manual" itspecifies 20 degrees movement of the rudder each way but it does not specify if this is from the neutral position or if it is from the 5 degrees offset position of the rudder!

 

Regards Ross

 

 

[Captain]

G'day Ross.

 

The cabin heater metal thing is primarily Stainless. The inlet piece onto which the scat hose is fitted is Aluminium and is glewed into the SS. It is held into the firewall with an approx 50 mm diascrewed nut on the inside.

 

As a matter of interest, you can see that there is a butterfly inside that SS fitting which is spring loaded on an over-centre basis similar to the carb heat butterfly. Well to just demonstrate what an unrealistic picky bastard I am, I spent almost7 hours filing & refitting & refilingthat butterfly to get an almost perfect mating with the inside of the main fitting .... just to reduce the airspace thru which fumes can come into the cabin. That type of thing, as you surely know with yours, adds untold hours to the build ..... but I find that it also gives me untold satisfaction ..... yet the fit of the original part would probably have been fine.

 

The heater systemcomes with a Carbon Monoxide detector patch as I'm sure yours would have done.

 

The point you make about the sound proofing is spot-on and that is why I've decided to do all penetrations without it being installed. Then I'll attach the foam and the carpet and hopefully the cutouts can be done progressively as I go with that in the next day or two.

 

I've done a trial fitup of the rudder pedals as I am 6' 3" tall and want them as far forward as I reasonably can. I hope to have them finally fitted in the next day or two. My rudder all worked well when I did the trial fit.

 

Regards Geoff Captain