Arm Rest - 1 hour (424 Total)

The last thing I did today was build and install my arm rest. Rans provided a pre-shaped piece of plywood, a rough cut piece of foam, and an oversized piece of fabric. I cut the foam to match the shape of the plywood and stapled the fabric over the top.

The hard part was screwing the completed arm rest to the plane. In the picture below you can see the flexible shaft screwdriver I used to screw the arm rest into place.

Elevator Trim - 5 hours (423 Total)

Today I installed the elevator trim tab.

The hinges for the trim tab went together pretty easily. They use an aluminum tube cut to 1/16" long as a bushing to reduce the friction in the hinge. There is still a significant amount of friction but the tab does move. If this doesn't loosen up over time I may need to replace the 1/16" bushings with slightly larger ones.
















The actuator cable for the trim is routed out the tailboom, through a cable clamp, to a stopper that is riveted to the trailing edge of the elevator.

The cable clamp is attached to the leading edge of the elevator with a bolt and a rivnut. I purchased a tool specifically designed to install rivnuts. Unfortunately, it worked too easily. I over tightened the rivnut and stripped out the threads. I needed to drill out the rivnut and install a second one. The manual only calls for one rivnut and cable clamp but the kit came with two. Rans may have intended for the second one to be used on the trailing edge of the horizontal stabilizer to prevent the cable from rubbing on the fabric.















To cut the cable and housing to the proper length, I needed to unbolted the trim wheel from the flap lever mechanism. This allowed me to disassemble the trim wheel and pull the cable out of the housing. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a way for me to cut the housing shorter than the cable.

I cut the cable so that I have an inch or so of extra length in case I need to make any adjustments. I set the trim tab to be in line with the elevator while the trim wheel was centered. I crimped a cap onto the end of the cable to keep the sharp cable end away from my skin.






























Since I had to remove the trim wheel from the flap lever mechanism, I went ahead and installed the fabric covering over the flap lever mechanism. I needed to cut the fabric with my soldering iron so it would fit over the trim wheel bracket.






























I used Locktite to secure all the bolts and screws.

Elevators - 2 hours (418 Total)

After I finished with the rudder, I installed the elevators.

These went on without much difficulty. Each elevator has two hinges and a elevator horn for actuation. I needed to rotate one of the elevator horns because I had installed it backwards.














Once I installed the hinge and horn bolts, I installed the necessary lock rings and cotter pins. I also lubricated the hinges with a spray on teflon lubricant.





























I also installed the black plastic caps on the outside ends of the elevator's aluminum tubes. The assembly manual calls for the caps on the inside ends of the tubes but I didn't see the need.

Rudder - 3 hours (416 Total)

Once the stabilizers were in place, I installed my rudder.

The rudder has two hinges that connect it to the tail. One hinge bracket is bolted to the top of the aluminum tube of the vertical stabilizer and the other is welded to the tailboom extension. The distance between the hinges will vary depending on how far down the vertical stabilizer is placed on the tailboom extension. I should have checked the hinge spacing prior to drilling the hole in the tailboom extension to ensure the rudder would match up but I didn't think of it at the time. Luckily, the rudder hinges mated up without any problem.

Once the hinge bolts were installed, I connected the rudder control cables. I needed to change the connection point of the cables where they connect to the rudder pedals to allow for the proper length. I did not put too much effort into tensioning the cables; I only made sure the majority of the slack was eliminated.





























































After testing the movement of the rudder system, I installed cotter pins in to the pulleys and hinge bolts. I also sprayed all of the moving parts, except the pulleys, with a teflon lubricant.

Stabilizers - 4 hours (413 Total)

During the strobe installation, I also installed the vertical stabilizer.

The vertical stabilizer mounts to the plane with two bolts. One bolt goes through the tail boom extension. The other goes through a set of brackets that are riveted to the tailboom.













































I then attached the horizontal stabilizers. The base (root) of the horizontal stabilizers bolt onto the vertical stabilizer with U-brackets. Then eight cables are used to hold the stabilizers in position.

The cables need to be secured very tightly to prevent them from vibrating in flight. The tangs on the cable ends have four holes in them to fine tune their tension/length. I was able to make the cables very tight by installing all of the cables with only finger tightened bolts. Once all the cables were installed, I removed their slack by tightening all of the bolts.




























































The assembly manual calls for only one thick washer to be used on the bolts and U-brackets. I used two thin washers on each side instead.

Strobe - 1 hour (409 Total)

Today I was able to accomplish quite a bit. The first thing I did was install my strobe light.

I purchased a SC103 ultralight strobe light with the intent of mounting it onto my tail. I am not required to have a strobe light on the plane but it did seemed like a good idea for the sake of visibility and safety.

The strobe light came with a metal tab attached for mounting. This turned out to be quite convenient for mounting on the top of my vertical stabilizer. I used a bench vise to bend the tab into a slight curve to better fit between the aluminum tube and curved hinge I mounted it between.

I ran the wiring down through the aluminum tubing of the vertical stabilizer. I needed to drill two holes in the tailboom extension to allow for the wiring. I used rubber grommets to protect the wiring from the sharp metal edges. I then used zipties to secure the wiring to the tailboom extension to ensure that it would not interfere with the rudder cables or elevator push-pull tube.
I soldered the pigtail leads from the strobe directly to the jacketed wiring that I routed through the tail boom. There is about a foot worth of slack in the wire that was stuffed down the top of the aluminum tube of the vertical stabilizer in case the strobe needs to be replaced or serviced.

Brakes - 2 hours (408 Total)

Today I routed the cables for my brakes.

Several months ago I temporarily routed the brake cable for just the left brake to test it's functionality. If they didn't work well enough, I was going to replace them with hydraulic brakes. The cable brakes seam to function adequately. I do wish they had a parking brake feature but I will see if I can live without it.

One of the things I don't like about the brake setup is that the pedals stick out by several inches. This means that I would have to press (actuate) the brakes to rest my feet on the rudder pedals. This was not comfortable for me so I created a standoff (see the first picture) out of a short piece of cable housing. This standoff allows my feet to sit flush against the rudder and brake pedals. This does reduce the range of motion of the brake pedals but I should still have enough to fully actuate the brakes.

















Some of the holes provided for the cable housing and caps had too much paint in them. In the picture below you can see how I "encouraged" the cap to fit into place.






























I trimmed the brake cables to length and used a soldering iron to keep the cables from fraying. The brake cables were adjusted so that there is a slight amount of drag on the brake drums. This dragging only occurs in some spots as the wheels are rotated. I expect this to go away after the cables stretch and the brake pads become warn.

Tailboom Trim - 1 hour (406 Total)

I spent some time cutting and fitting the trim that fits around the tailboom. Fitting the Trim was difficult because of the lack of clearance between the sheet metal and the boom tube.

I need to purchase some super glue to adhere the trim into place.

Painting Plane - 0 hours (405 Total)

Today I rolled the plane back into my workshop. The painter still has some work to do on the smaller pieces but they should be done within a few days.

It took the painter about 50 hours over a two week period to paint the plane. As expected, masking a prepping took the most time. The total bill came out to $2000; the cost and the total time was more than the painter or I expected. I had the painter charge me on an hourly basis instead of quoting me a flat fee. My reasoning for this was too keep the painter from cutting corners towards the end of the project if it took more time, effort, and materials than he based his quote on. This kept both the painter and myself happy.

There were two major problems along the way. The first was on the bottom of the plane. We hung the plane from the ceiling to allow the painter to paint the under side. It appears we didn't raise the plane high enough because we had some rough textured, dry overspray on the bottom.
The other problem was caused some rough spots on the primer coat. The painter did not sand down the primer coat. The resulting bumps were easily seen after the color and clear coat were applied. The bumps turned into white dots when the painter tried to sand them out.

Both issued above required the painter to sand, paint, and clear the body over again! Luckily, the tail boom did not have and of the primer bumps and didn't need the repainting. The extra paint will add some weight to the plane but since most of it is in front of the center of gravity, it should give me a CG benefit.

One issue that I will have the painter touch up is the metal strip around the nose cone. In many placed the paint is too thin which allows the primer to show through.

I am quite happy with the paint job. Below are some pictures the painter took for me of the painting process.