As I tried to prefit the ply material cover landing plates I realised they would impact the wing peg alloy guides so spread the wings at the weekend to get an idea of how much I would need to trim back.

Both lower guides have now been trimmed (and filed) back to allow the wings to peg out but still leave space for the ply plate. Ply plates have been glued in place and packing applied at the back to maintain the angle.

These shrouds fit over the top of the engine cyclinder heads and, through air directed through the cooling holes cut in the top cowl, cool the heads in flight.

The shrouds need to have a tight fit to the top cowl and will require trimming back to ensure they fit neatly inside the cowl line.

The 1″ wide rubber edging will be glued and riveted to ensure it provides a tight seal.

When I showed the ‘plane in static at the Jersey air show in 2014 a chap asked me how many spare wires I was laying down as I built the ‘plane. Turns out he used to work in the Fleet Air Arm and they used to add spare wiring into the loom on production in case of failures or additional requirements added post build. What a great idea !

For the sake of a few pence, I now have 5 spare leads added front to back and these can be brought into use in minutes.

First fit of the screens – leaving the protective covers on

They slot very neatly into the trimmed down fibreglass guides.

Sam came along last night to help out – always useful having another pair of hands .. lifted the port side onto a block to allow the wheel to spin freely so that I would check the brakes. These were made nearly 2 years ago (being one of the first bits I did) and the pulling of the lever seemed fine and stopped the wheel spin at about half deflection.

I can now look at completing the cable run down through the leg from the heel kick bar.

Sam also found I had a two wheel grinder in the back of the workshop and was blown away by this ‘new toy’ … giggles and whoops of delight at this ‘..awesome tool …’ … he even managed to use it to sharpen my pencils AND make a moulded left handed pencil with smooth indents !! Kids eh …

In true Top Gear fashion .. I said he could forego the yellow Hi Viz but should put the goggles on 🙂

Downloaded a couple of PDF’s from Google the other day .. “Top 10 Aircraft Wiring Mistakes (and how to avoid them)”and also “Aircraft Electrical Systems” a sort of picture book A B C of parts that you knew existing but were perhaps too afraid of looking a dummy to ask about !

Going to be some useful / light reading as I start the serious job of wiring up the engine

Going to have to work out how I run cables from the ‘front end’ of the engine (Oil Pressure, Oil Temp) past a set of 4 hot cylinders to the junction box. Suspect I need to wrap in heat proof cable shroud.

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