My Taylorcraft
restoration project, G-BREY
Page 7, November 2005 - February 2006
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by Robert Lees
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November 2005: Now
the wings are done, the fuselage comes back for doors and cowls:
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The fuselage comes back for final
fettling & fitting of the cowlings & doors. I do some fettling of the D
window trim pieces. |
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The engine gets reunited with the
firewall... |
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To fit the new nosebowl concentric to the prop
flange, I have made a collar to fit snugly between the two.
OD is 6" to fit inside the nosebowl hole, ID is 5.18" to fit snugly over
the prop flange. |
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I have had the lower bootcowl made deliberately
oversize, so that I can incrementally trim it to fit in situ. |
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I use Cleco's to hold the parts
together...these holes will become holes for the Dzus fasteners. |
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I have had new stainless Dzus fasteners
modified by drilling through... |
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..so that a tool with a pin will prevent the
scratching of the paint. |
December 2005
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After much fettling, I can start to look at the
top cowls...I use my slip rolls to get the sheet to conform to the curve. |
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I use my shrinker to bend some aluminium angle
to the shape of the top cowls. (This is the stringer in the middle of the top cowl). |
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Reinforcing the nosebowl where the top hinge
meets, I use some stainless plate. There are three screws which attach the front
hinge where the 1/8 clecos are; I will open the holes out later. |
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Using the original cowl as a pattern, I joggle
the lower cowl to take the thickness of the top cowl to provide a flush finish. The
stainless firewall has a recess to allow this. |
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I roll new top cowls using my slip rolls.
Final trimming will be done in situ. |
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As I progress, with constant trimming, things
start to look good. I use duct tape to hold things until I drill the Cleco holes. |
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The Cleco's mark where the Dzus fasteners will
go. I will drill these out as one of the last operations. Note also I am
leaving the bronze ring around the prop flange during the whole process, so that I can be
as sure as possible of correct alignment to the crank. |
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An aperture is cut for the exhaust... |
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...and for the air intake. |
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New skills are learnt; here I folded the cut
edges over to make a little bit of reinforcing. |
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All in all, the progress is satisfying. |
More cowling work:
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On the lower cowl, I make new stainless
reinforcing patches for the four corners
(the shrinking tool helps get the curve in the folded edge... |
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...I do similar for the two lowest Dzus
fastener reinforcing patches. All of these stainless patches are flush-riveted on. |
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On the new top cowls, I add an additional
stringer at right angles to the original. |
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This will hopefully reduce the twisting of the
originals.
Again, all are flush riveted. |
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I make new stainless patches for the new top
cowls (why all of these were stainless is, I can only assume, to keep thickness to a
minimum for a given strength). |
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After alodining all components of all the cowls
(except the stainless ones), I wet-rivet them up, then prime with etch prime.
Here is the two-pack epoxy straight on top of the etch prime. |
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All of the flush rivets were treated with a
quick dab of "knifing putty" to seal the little circle of gap between the rivet
and the skins; the excess gets sanded off.
If this is not done, then the paint will not stick to the very sharp edge of the
rivet head.
I used JB Weld, a well-known Aviation two-pack epoxy product. |
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I am working on the doors too.
Here, I have added a stringer to the inside of the outer door skins, to reduce the
pushing in of the bowed skin... |
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...I do the same to the new inner door panels,
but this is to prevent drumming of the flat panel. |
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While I am in the riveting mood, I rivet up the
inspection covers.
This was another case of me hating those pesky steel rivets that manufacturers seem
to love...
...so I de-riveted the lot and started again. It was an ideal time to
bead-blast the steel spring & paint it front and back, separate from the aluminium
cover. |
January 2006
After priming all the cowling elements, I encounter some
contaminated paint, unfortunately after I had sprayed the cowls.
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The photos are self-explanatory,
and are of samples I did after I discovered the problem. Of fours tins of two
different colours, purchased from two different suppliers at two different times, two tins
of red and one of white were contaminated. |
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The paint appeared to curdle, and would not
cure correctly. Fingerprints would remain in the soft surface, even after seven
days. I have no choice but to laboriously wet-sand to remove the film on most of the
components. |
Poly-Fiber did replace the defective product, and also
supplied materials necessary to get back to where I was. They however refused my
invitation to compensate me for the additional hours I needed to spend correcting the
situation. The UK agent, Tony Young, acted very admirably with his assistance,
however, and I cannot fault his customer service.
But the experience has severely dented my confidence in
their product, and in the factory quality control methods.
February 2006
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I eventually get the white gloss completed, and
mask off to paint the red. |
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Red top coat. After the last
coat of paint, I spray a very thinned down coat, mostly thinners, to increase the gloss
level, but one must be very wary of runs! |
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After removal of the masking, the
effect is very pleasing. |
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The old and new lower cowls side-by-side. |
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I also paint the white on the doors first, then
mask off for red... |
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...and again I am now pleased with the final
effect. |
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A tally of my hours spent restoring is available here
Other restoration photos
Nosebowl Grille fitting
problems.
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