| Jabiru J400 Builder
Log - March 2006
3/31/2006 2:06pm-6:03pm
1) did some more filling with dry micro...lots of filling in the
tail section and fuselage sides
2) tried sanding the tail side from yesterday... doesn't seem too
tough but some sort of sander would be a lot easier...hmmm
3) did some loafing around the airport as usual...
3/30/20063:10pm-6:02pm
1) dry micro'd the rear right side to the tail... dry micro is tough
to apply and smoothen...
3/29/2006 3:08pm-6:42pm
1) taped up the door windows for sanding
2) sanded the door window edges
3) finished sanding the tail...including shaping the bullet at the
static pitot...now we're ready for the final dry micro to smoothen
all the surfaces on the fuselage (except maybe where the wings are
since they are still on
3/28/2006 2:10-6:30pm
1) sanded and smoothened the fuselage sides and tail...not quite
complete...next time i'll dry micro it and do the final smoothening...
sanding is not as tough as i thought it'd be... still time consuming
but nothing like sanding metal... micro is actually very easy to
sand
3/24/2006 3:20pm-5:22pm
1) vacuumed the hangar...quite dusty everywhere
2) figured i'd try out the hole filling with dry micro so i filled
in all the holes around the fuselage sides where they joined the
top and bottom half...seemed to be done easily.. didn't think it
was all that hard but we'll see how tough it'll be to sand when
it dries
3/23/2006 2:39pm-6:23pm
1) another week or so of not much work getting done...another few
snow storms in a row...anyway.. i did get the plastic bushings for
the steering links for nose gear in the mail. i also read up on
the ELT installation and it looks like i will need to make a fiberglass
plate for it to install in the tail horizontally...one other thing...i
bought a 6inch wide aluminum sheet for the ground plane of the transponder
antena
2) cut a 6 inch circle out of the aluminum plate for the transponder
ground plane... siliconed the plate to the fuselage after sanding
the gel coat off
3) trimmed the magnetometer fiberglass bracket made the previous
day
4) glassed about 14 layers of this new eglass from wicks to make
the bracket for the ELT...this bracket needs to be quite sturdy
since the antena must be able to hold on in an event of a crash...used
aeropoxy...current temp about 52F
3/18/2006 6:07pm-8:57pm
1) so i put the eyeball vent in its socket and sat in the plane...
i think they will work great... also.. i realized there really isn't
much building left.. it's going to be mostly finishing from now
on... there are a few things left to build though... for instance,
i need a little magnetometer (for the bluemountain efis)u bracket
in the back to hold it horizontal in the tail somewhere.. i do still
wonder if i should find a place up front but there really isn't
much room anywhere and it does need to be somewhat isolated from
metal from what i've read
2) drilled a 3/4 inch hole 300 mm to the rear of the nose wheel
for the aircraft transponder... unfortunately i couldn't find a
6 inch aluminum sheet for the ground plane of this antena...so will
have to try elsewhere tomorrow
3) glassed 6 layers of the same glass used on the HID onto a plastic
sheet... then i layed the glass layers on a mold for the bluemountain
magnetometer...the mold actually included a piece of plate from
the HID plate for support...used about 3oz of aeropoxy...current
temp 54F
3/16/2006 3:30pm-10:13pm
1) removed the wing root fairings and smoothened them out by sanding
2) cut the aileron cable holes into the fuselage and routed the
cables to the control stick... yey ;) ... i got full control of
the airplane now
3) cut out the left and right side panels that cover the vertical
fuel lines
4) cut out the left and right panels that cover the break cylinder
5) cut out and fit the bottom wing root fairings with 6g s/s screws
6) cut out the holes for the fuel lines in the fuselage that go
out to the wings... these will need smoothening when the wings are
removed
7) 5minute epoxied the eyeball base to the naca ducts for the 2
front vents... then i glassed 2 strips of e-glass from wicks with
aeropoxy around the joint for strength... current temp is about
54F
3/15/2006 4:44pm-10:05pm
1) cut the keyhole in the doors and installed the door locks...
i also made slots in the door frames and jams to allow the doorlock
to lock
2) bent and riveted the top door latch to all doors
3) filed all the slots and cutouts for the door latches for a nicer
look
3/14/2006 1:36pm-10:02pm
1) peeled the door seal and stuck it to all 3 doors
2) hot gunned the pvc jam into all 3 doorframes...used 8g s/s screws
to hold it in place to door jam... used hot gun to warm the screws
and drove them into pvs instead of countersinking...looks much nicer
than it would with countersinking
3/13/2006 2:31pm-6:59pm
1) decided that i need to tackle the steering links... 2 options...
bend the rod or put them on the outside of the pedals...since i
don't think it'll require much more hole elongation, i decided to
elongate it first for the outside of the pedals
2) so i elongated the holes and put the steering links on the outside
of the pedals... seems to work just fine this way...no need to bend
them... i don't think the holes are too big...the missing white
bushings should cover 98% of the hole i think..we'll see
3) installed the plunger plate on all 3 door frames
4) cleaned the door edges and split the door seals in order to stick
them to the door... will do that tomorrow instead
3/7/2006 4:10pm-10:56pm
1) so i attacked the flaps again... decided to get them to flatten
out with the rest of the wing... it seems that with a straight flap
push rod above the wing there's just no way to straighten out the
flaps completely even after removing the wing skin above the rear
wing attachment bolt...so since i didn't want to risk cutting into
the fiberglass spars i decided to bend the flap push rods a bit
in the vise... should work fine because with a bent push rod i can
lock the rod in the appropriate position with the locking nuts...
after bending it worked like a charm and the flaps come up all the
way flat and possibly more if needed
2) fit the top wing root fairings and trimmed the flap root to match
the fairings... took quite a bit of trial and error to get them
to align properly with the flap movement... used 6g s/s screws to
hold fairings in place
3/3/2006 5:53pm-1:35pm
1) so the wings are on... the wings were put on a few days ago with
the help of Mark and Tricia...i didn't really bother logging the
hours but it was a few hours...
2) fit the flaps to the wings and attached the flap push rods...flaps
still need some adjusting...it doesn't seem that they go all the
way up...the push rods are too long?
3) prefit the top strut fairings... then i epoxied the rear top
fairing to the wing and screwed the front fairing with 6g 1/4 s/s
screws...used about 3 oz of aeropoxy for both sides...current temp
54F
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