Keith – my freindly landlord popped in last night for a quick update on the build and spotted I had missed one of the firewall rivets …. so …

Keith – duly put it in !

The sunny weekend we had last weekend enabled me to get the Sherwood out and open the wings again. There is still some slight adjustment required on the top wing rigging which will have to be done soon.

The sunshine gave me the opportunity to get the aileron paxolin guides in place and then get them running smoothly with no metal to metal contact at all. Apparently, according to colleagues at work I am a bit of a saddo for actually recording the quietness of the aileron operation ! although WordPress won’t let me upload an MP4 !

Becks – who is currently working with me has offered to make me a propellor cover to protect my investment in those 4 lovely layers of beach crafted by Hercules !

She popped over and made up a pattern using tracing paper

The aim is to make a padded cover for each that will slip tightly over the widest parts of the blade

Mocked up padded sleeve

As well as adding some supporting 1/22 balsa cheeks in the upper cabane late last night, I started to prepare the backing / packing for the wing root ply landing plates. These will allow the material covering to form around these parts and have a good base to secure to.

I held off gluing in place as I could see that the alloy shroud on the main spar wing peg mount may well catch on this. So have made and tailored the parts in situ, drilling the holes to allow the joint bolt heads to poke through and then used masking tape to hold pending some decent weather to allow me to get the ‘plane outside and the wings out to check clearance.

Note the paint brushes I am keeping out now as I pass each part and start the big clear down of debris and swarf and dust ….

Having now got the cowls as I want them I can secure the front end of the stringers inside the cheek cowls. I had been trying to work out how to get the drill into this tight space and even got a right anlge short chuck driver to help. In the end it was far simpler to simply remove the front 3 dowel pins from the stringers, carefully spring them out and drill the premarked location for the angled brackets I had made.

These had also been pre drilled for the rivet that would go through the cheek.

Simple job in the end. Its funny how some jobs make it feel so much closer to finish … riveting little bits like this are one of those !

With the top and bottom cowl largely in place and just some fine trimming around the edges its time to remove the clecos that have been securing the stainless firewall to the top decking and side cheeks

Note washers are used where the alloy 3.2mm rivets pull against the fibreglass top decking.

As part of the final gaggle of tasks .. one is to weigh the aircraft and then start applying the formula that my Dad kindly etched out to review the expected balance point and, therefore, the subsequent ballast required.

Although this is a little premature (not all objects are on the aircrat yet – although its largely very near all up weight) its worth walking through the process.

So it looks like 25kg on the tailwheel and 85kg on each of the mains .. so all up currently is 195kg.