5-28-03 - 6/18/03  Total guesstimate on the hours here ~65 (includes ~18 hours for Chris)

I'll try to summarize what's happened the last 3 weeks since getting the engine mounted and the plane up on landing gear.  I spent the first weekend just going back over all the stuff that we had done Memorial day weekend.  It's always great to have help but in this case I decided to just review everything on the FWF and the landing gear.  I found a couple things that we had skipped, used the wrong bolt, just hadn't got to yet, etc.... stuff that didn't really amount to a problem but it was wrong so I changed them to conform to the plans.  

I then started going down the list of the FWF kit.  Installing hoses, fittings and control cable mounts.  I was delaying finishing up the canopy until I made a trip to Minneapolis to the RV flyin on the 31st.  I just couldn't seem to get the picture in my head of how the windscreen fit.  We made it a family trip, Katie invited Kelly (one of her friends that we just think of as a part of the family), Chris drove up from Ames,  Linda and I. We went to the Mall of America and then the RV forum.  The girls have just graduated from high school and were attempting to stimulate the economy at the Mall.

Chris came in Fathers day weekend and we spent  all weekend messing with the canopy.  I'm still working on the rear skirts but everything else is cut and fitted.

Some general pictures:

  MT prop governor

  Vetterman exhaust.  Vetterman has just started making a 2" exhaust but I didn't feel like sending this one back.

Odyessy PC680 from Sunnbattery.com

This is where the fuel and oil pressure transducers will mount.

Control cable bracket for the IO360-A1B6 mixture control.

Throttle bracket.

This is the roll bar and the sliding canopy frame with the latch closed.  Here's what I did with this.  I made sure that the sliding frame remained parallel to the longerons and put spacers under the roll bar to lean it aft.  In other words, the roll bar is not at a 90 degree angle to the longerons.  It's the only thing that makes sense unless you want to spend all year trying to bend the sliding frame.  There is a post on the RV list that quotes Van's as saying this is the appropriate thing to do.  I wish I had seen that post before I fretted over matching up these two pieces.

The rear support of the canopy frame.

The side skirts.

The inside of the side skirts with the skirt braces.  I talked Linda into climbing inside and holding the braces while I drilled them from the outside.  This was one that I couldn't do by myself.

6-20-03 - 6-21-03  10 hours

Here's the finished rear skirts.  They turned out pretty good. 

I stole this idea from -6A builder Mike Stewart.  I taped a couple of one by's to the back plate and used the orange hammer in the picture  to put a slight bow about an inch from the edge of the skirts.  Then just keep pulling forward as you drill.  Not that big of a deal.

I bought some Rustoleum Hammered paint in the quart to try painting the interior again.  I hoped that I could use my paint gun and get a consistent finish.  I was not successful so I guess I'll go to the paint store and buy some "real" paint.  It's not that I'm not wanting to use real paint,  I really like the looks of the hammered paint when it works.  It just isn't a consistent finish.

PROP.....So, no painting.  What to do?  Hang the prop?  Why not! Here's some pic's with the MT prop mounted.  Looks good to me.