GPW wrote:Sounds like a Vast Improvement in the weather there ...
Great progress KC !!!
Yes! It was up to 69 F in the loft this afternoon with the solar gain and into the 60’s outside. I was wishing I had brought a pair of shorts to change into. Thanks.
Wobbly Wheels wrote:Skosh = TLAR engineering jargon ?...
Quick question on the roof-to-wall radius - do you think there's a potential for the harder ribs to telegraph through the canvas over time and leave a line ?
Were you planning on wrapping something over the corner or is it not likely to be an issue ?
It's
gotta feel good to get the foam on and to be at the stage where you're laying out the 'finishing' stuff like tail lights.
Skosh, you know, like “hey, scoot over a skosh”, it’s a little bit. I had to look up the spelling cuz I always thought it was “skotch” (say sco-ta-cha).
Yeah, I am worried about the spars telegraphing thru, both on top and at the ends, but other than fairing it all the best I can and/or using epoxy and glass instead of canvas (… or maybe epoxy and filler over canvas?) I don’t see a good solution. No plans for any hard trim, but if I had it to do over I probably would have made the hard edge in the galley section of the walls full length. Maybe not laminated, but miter joined sections cut to the profile like I did the hatch ribs.
Feels great every time I reach any type of milestone! Even just getting the first bent piece of foam on there, crooked and all, was a bit of a relief. Sometimes I get a little nervous or drag my feet a little when getting into a new area of the build or a new technique, but eventually, so long as it doesn’t turn into a complete flop, I get thru to a happy place.
dales133 wrote:Yea it must feel good!
Have you got a pic of the tail lights your using?
Feels great! The details like the taillight blisters are the fun part. All of the details. Hopefully these are the things that will make all of the time and attention worth it; the things that will make TPCE special and uniquely my brainchild.
Check out today's progress, including a pic of one of the LED taillights sourced from
superbrightleds.com.
Brought my hot wire knife and old school battery charger with me from home today. I made this years ago for cutting out model glider wing segments. Simple spine made of two pieces of 1/2 inch ply sandwiched together; a couple of carriage bolts bored into pocket holes with retainer nuts; a length of safety tie wire wrapped around the bolt shanks; and a length of solid copper wire soldered to the far bolt and trained to the other end with wire staples.
I need to add a tension spring or switch to nickel chromium wire. The steel wire sags with the heat and can be tricky to get a smooth straight cut. I should have double taped the blanks to the bench, but instead just toed them up against a block clamped to the edge. It worked pretty good for the first part of the cut. By pushing the wire down onto the guide templates it kept some tension on the wire, but when it got to the beveled part the downward force flipped the part up and the wire sag nipped a little extra out of the top edge; wiggling around and such, not such a clean cut, shown here after a little hand sanding to knock down the high ridges.
With it lying on the table you can see how it took the sharp edge off. In hindsight, it may have been better to leave excess for the wire cutting and do the saw cut after the wire cutting.
Next I double taped the cut off part back on to level the piece for the scroll saw.
Cut the center out.
Moved the guide templates to the second blank, paid a little more attention and got a little better result. Still nipped the sharp edge off where the wire exited the foam.
Next I tilted the scroll saw table to match the bevel and cut the ends off. (This is a mock-up picture, only, with my hand holding the part so as not to block the camera angle. Not a good idea to put your hand under the reciprocating saw arm while it is operating.)
Sawed a little wide of the line and sanded by hand to dress the saw marks back to the line.
With the wedge cut piece removed I could fit it to the hatch (despite just having a single layer of foam on the lower street side) and get an idea what it will look like.
Here it is with the taillight after rounding over the edge of foam around the screw flange a tad with the sanding block.
Pulled the stretcher off of the upper curb side front radius foam and faired the joint to the lower piece. The PL300 sanded just fine. It rolled over a little where the paper didn’t cut it, but rubbed away in little curls for the most part.
Karl brought me a cranberry walnut chicken salad sandwich from the Hadlyme Country Store.
I decided to give that balky can of GS another shot and dragged it out of the trash. Cleaned the straw, trigger nozzle and can spout out again with more acetone, and it seemed like the top of the can spout was weeping a little. It must have sealed itself shut after I cleaned it last, so the trick seems to be to clean after
and before each use. Another pointer is, that any foam on the bench is never far enough away from the acetone when cleaning out the can straw; got a spot on the freshly crafted taillight blister. I’ll fill that with something before covering. Also catch that I drilled pilot holes for the taillight screws.
Back to the front, I reconfigured the stretcher for the street side and put the lower panel, first layer of foam on.
I think as I cinch the clamps up at the top the stretcher is pulling the panel up with it. The curb side pivoted around the axe mount resulting in the tilt I mentioned, and here on the street side it pulled the whole panel up away from the locker and stone guard “sparette” about 1/8 inch. Not an issue at the top where the spar holds the second panel in place, but is something to be mindful of if I use this technique on the hatch. I'll have to squirt some foam in at the bottom to fill the gap.
I had to patch the stretcher paper. It tore from me pressing by hand from the outside when doing the curb side. Just that little tear was enough to lose tension in that area, but the tape seemed to fix it. I’m thinking that Randy’s Tyvek idea might be a better one because it is really hard to tear.
Cleaned all of the foam dust out of the wireway and panel seam on the curb side and squeezed some GS in there. Still not thrilled with the performance of this stuff for our needs, but it is what I used. I think I would have been happier just squeezing some window caulk in there, or perhaps some more of the PL300.
I figured out where I wanted to mount the galley light, laid out the screw holes and wire hole on masking tape on the underside and pilot drilled thru to the outside. From there I put a new spot of tape over the holes on the inside (to prevent glue from dripping in) and glued these little maple blocks on to the outside. The one on the street side is a little wider so that the separate hole for the wires is reinforced, too. I’ll drill thru the blocks using the holes in the skin as a guide after the glue has set. Before gluing I laid a piece of sandpaper over this part of the hatch and sanded the little blocks to the curve so that they would seat on the curve well.
Located and pilot drilled the hole where the wires will pass thru the skin from the harness into the foam (circled by sharpie).
I took a hole saw plug of two layers of 5 mm ply off of my rack of little scraps (probably from the spacer I made for the pull box under the tongue box), opened up the center hole and glued that over this wire hole to reinforce where the wire bundle will route thru (shown here under a can of spirits used a s a gravity clamp). I’ll drill the hole up in size from the inside to suit the bundle as needed and prevent splintering.
Thinking ahead to wiring, I set the final location for the street side taillight and marked it.
The rewards of my labor, another mockup of the taillight blister.
Easy to fix ...
