G-UFOX
- Doors and Controls
More progress.
George
and Tom have done some great work on the doors. Each door consists of two Lexan
panels with a complex curve on each. These are mounted on the tubular door frames.
The important thing when working Lexan is to ensure that it is warm - so plenty
of blowing it with a hairdryer. Careful drilling and temporary fixing with cleco
clamps. The rivets must be fitted with a little gap to allow for expansion.
This can easily be achieved by using a Stanley-knife blade, with one of the
little slots at the top, around the rivet when using the riveter. It is then
easily removed and job done. A David Razor Plane is also very useful for working
the edges. These are carefully trimmed to fit the aircraft, with frequent offering
it up to the planes door aperture.
Now
we are in possession of a replacement bellcrank, we have progressed the controls.
The flapperon and elevator controls (all rose jointed pushrods and bellcranks)
have been re-dry fitted. Most have now also been final fitted, except for the
last ones which we need to use to adjust the range of movement of the control
surfaces.
We
found the bowden cable outers for the rudder control cables are too long and
too close to the peddles - this would prevent full movement of the rudder peddles.
It is imperative that we don't damage the cables even a little, else they are
scrap, so the cables have to be extracted before cutting the tube ends. Important
tip - make sure you attach a piece of wire to the end of the cable (when extracting),
so that you can use it to pull the cable back down to the rudder - otherwise
you will spend ages with little hooks on the end of sticks, trying to persuade
the wire back through the individual tubes along the length of the tail - quite
tricky. We could then measure-up and swage the eye's on to the ends of the cables
for attachment onto the rudder horns. A bit of finishing-off to do.
The
instrument panel has now had the extra holes we require added and all fettled
so that all the instruments now fit.
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George
and Tom have done some great work on the doors. Each door consists of two Lexan
panels with a complex curve on each. These are mounted on the tubular door frames.
The important thing when working Lexan is to ensure that it is warm - so plenty
of blowing it with a hairdryer. Careful drilling and temporary fixing with cleco
clamps. The rivets must be fitted with a little gap to allow for expansion.
This can easily be achieved by using a Stanley-knife blade, with one of the
little slots at the top, around the rivet when using the riveter. It is then
easily removed and job done. A David Razor Plane is also very useful for working
the edges. These are carefully trimmed to fit the aircraft, with frequent offering
it up to the planes door aperture.
