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Avid rebuild

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Posted

Hey C5E

How is your project doing ? Haven't heard a report from you for a while.

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Posted

Lost a week recently of spraying due to foul weather. Final coats of white are going on the wings this weekend hopefully. Then we have to mask it off for my Navy Blue scallops. Unfortunately they are far from the top of the list for the A&P that is doing the work on them. It's been pretty frustrating the say the least.  As soon as I get my wings back I'm going to reassemble it. I have to come up with some paint to respray the fuse too. The thing was originally sprayed with Ranthane so I'm not sure what I can use to spray over the top of it. Still trying to research that. I have a little ringworm where the vertical blends with the fuse that I sanded out that I have to build back up with some dope and spray too. I just got the keys to my first home this week so I'll be busy moving for the next couple of weeks. So basically 90% done 90% to go just like all airplane projects.  :banghead:

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Posted

So I'm about at my wits end with this A&P. I stopped in to check on them two weeks ago and and they were ready for the final coats. He will not return my calls and I have not seen or heard from him. I paid him a lot of money to do a 2 week project that is going on 7 months. I've never had an issue like this before. I'm wondering what my options are. I'm about to go cut the lock off his hangar and go and get them and finish them myself.

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Posted

I would just show up when you know he is going to be there and pick them up. I understand your frustration but he has shown his interest, or lack of same. If you let him he will have them another 7 months.

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Posted

So I'm about at my wits end with this A&P. I stopped in to check on them two weeks ago and and they were ready for the final coats. He will not return my calls and I have not seen or heard from him. I paid him a lot of money to do a 2 week project that is going on 7 months. I've never had an issue like this before. I'm wondering what my options are. I'm about to go cut the lock off his hangar and go and get them and finish them myself.

hmmm a load of ordinance out the ass end of a C5 on his hangar should get his attention.  If you paid up front for it, I would be getting very pushy right now.  Nothing worse than having someone else hold you back from flying.

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Posted

Nothing worse than having someone else hold you back from flying.

Exactly!

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Posted

well I will be off for a couple weeks in July.. you want me and boys should come down and talk things over with yer A&P.  Got a few guys in fancy suits that would love to help "motivate" this individual :lol:

:beerchug:

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Posted

Finally got a text message from the guy. Guess his wife changed his cell plan without telling him and he ran out of minutes. Seems he was busy  the last two weeks as he called today to tell me they were done!!! There's still masking tape on in the pics. He had just pulled the paper off.  Now just have to get something done with the fuse but that's another thread.

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Posted

right on!  one step closer to getting it in the air!

:beerchug:

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Posted

Made some major progress today. Got the wings back on, the fuel lines and pitot hooked up, the little aluminum pieces where the front pin goes through riveted back on, and my flaperons cleaned up and ready for some paint. Next step will be to get the flaperons back on and rigged. Then the final project will be getting that fuse fixed up and looking nice and getting the rudder and elevator back on with new bushings. Getting closer!

Had a hell of a time getting the rear bolt back in the wings. It was super close every time. One of them we had to swing the wing all the way back to get it in and the other side I finally took the bottom strut clear away from the bracket to move it around enough to get the bolt through. There were three of us scratching our heads there for a while. That is something I hope to not have to do for a long time again.

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Posted

when I put mine on, I put the pins in the wing, then tried to get the strut attach bolt in the fuse fitting... buggered up the threads.  the second wing I put the strut attach bolt in first, then slid the wing up and put the pins in.. worked 100000% better!.  I went back, pulled the shitty bolt and did it the same way as #2 wing with a new bolt in it.  Took 4 people to hang the iwng this way, but it was easy after the first one!

You must be getting pretty damn ansy to get her in the air!  I was stoked when I finaly put the wings on.. I know I stayed up all night and got it all rigged and ready for a flight the next day as there was no sleeping for me at that point!

:beerchug:  < congratulatory chug for getting her this close!

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Posted

I had the strut bolt in the first time for both wings. Buggered the threads on one aft wing bolt. Glad I bought new ones before hand. I was able to reuse one of the old ones that was still in good shape to get it together anyhow. I replaced everything else in the struts and wing bolts with new. Your right I'm chomping at the bit.. this has been way too long of a project. Between my Dad's tinkering and mine we've had this plane for close to 4 years. It's had a motor swap, then a cow knocked it out of the barn and it rolled 50 ft down a hill and hit a tractor. The tail and one wingtip had to be stripped and some tubes put in. Then it survived a 2 year stint while my dad beat cancer. I finally got a hold of it and have been working on it since Nov pretty regularly. I want to fly her so bad I can taste it. Poor girl has been through 4 homes and lots of neglect since 1993. Got these pics from the original owner the other day. This was her in all her glory with the builder in the spring of 93 with a 532 and no electrical sys on it.

Avid.jpg

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Posted

Got my flaperons rigged today. Took a while to get the flaps right. Someone set them up so that rather than have a bolt to stop the handle, the handle would hit the frame and the lower half of it was practically in the bungees. I readjusted it so it stops much earlier. Set them at -2 level and 15 degrees of flap. I was a little concerned at how far out I had the screw ends with the new bellcranks. I think I only had like 5 or 6 turns of threads left on the new arms.

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Posted

3 or 4 threads should be all you really need.  5 or 6 and your golden

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Posted

Man I have not been out to the hangar in over a week. The A&P that did my wings closed up his shop and moved about 3 hours away. My $20 an hour labor rate just went bye bye. I am still stuck on what to do with this fuse. I got in touch with some guys from another EAA chapter about an hour away and a few of them expressed some interest in maybe helping but don't know how promising that will be. I'm started to get frustrated. So close yet so far away. I'm going to try and shoot a video and post it up in a few places and see what people think. Anybody have any some encouraging words? The end of summer and the birth of my daughter is fast approaching and I'm still planeless.

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Posted

Have you talked to Dean about the issues?  I would think he could let you know how to fix it up.  We dont mind flying some pretty ragged stuff up here.  As long as it is sound, looks dont make too much of a difference.  Knock the edges down and put some silver on it and fly the crap out of it...

:beerchug:

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Posted

My thread is getting bounced around so moving everything over to this one.

Some guys that start with latex right on their fabric do a layer in black first for UV. Since my airplane already has an approved finish with silver minus these few little spots I'm not worried about it. My Dad painted an ultralight he built in the early 90's with straight white latex and no UV. It's been sitting outside on the farm for 10 years where they get 10ft of snow a year and long hot summers it's never been under a shelter ever. The paint still looks new and the fabric is still strong. I'm sold. The only downside is making repairs with it. It can't be any worse than sanding on aero/ran thane like I have on my fuse now though. I plan on spraying tomorrow evening after the weather cools down. Going to start with a 10% floetrol mixture to slow down the drying process a little bit for a better coating. I'm only going to do a couple coats since I already built back up my bad spots and I don't want to add a bunch of weight. Here's a couple teaser shots.

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Smooth as glass

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I am impressed at how well my paint came out. I AM going to do my whole fuse. After a lot of fine tuning I have my set up and mixture dialed in. I used half a quart to do the rudder and elevator. A quart of dried latex weights a mere oz's.  Weight is not going to be an issue. My formula came out to be 12oz paint, 6oz water, 4oz floetrol. I'm using a $17 harbor freight spray gun and a borrowed compressor. Here are a few a pics with some light shining through the fence to show the finish. It's not perfect but a hell of lot better than what I started with. The first pic is of the same spot where I had the three big bare patches shown in the previous pics. You cannot even tell they were ever there. I'm going to do the same process on my fuse.

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My Laboratory. I'm using Kelly Moore superior semi gloss mixed to match my horizontal stab which was covered in ceconite and finished in butyrate dope. The floetrol slows the drying process significantly and allows the paint to flatten out giving a smoother finish. It was 95 degrees here and the coats were taking about 25 minutes to fully dry.

IMG_4619.jpg

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Posted

Okay it's been a while since I got to work on my plane due to an overseas military trip. Last I worked on it I sprayed the back of the fuse and my vertical stab. I found out the paint was not going to match very well, so I decided to do my entire fuse. I was also having serious issues with my el cheapo spray gun. You get what you pay for like most things. I picked up another spray gun of much higher quality to continue the project. The same formula is working for it but it took a little time to get my pattern dialed in. This gun has a much better spray pattern. I got most of the fuse done today before I ran out of paint. I should have it finished tomorrow.

Here is why I decided to pull my pin stripes off and do the entire fuse.

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Ready to spray

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The area where the vertical blends to the fuse used to be covered in ring worm. I worked it all out and built it back up with paint right out of the can using a foam brush. I then sanded it down with 400 grit paper. I am shocked how well it came out. It was pretty bad before.

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The gun

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The TO DO list is getting shorter

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Posted

hell looks like you could skip half the list and just fly :lol:  I dont have the lexan "inspection" covers at the elevator linkage in the tail, dont have to have them on to fly...  FAA paperwork... blahhh who needs it (ok I will confess, I eventually got mine squared away) :lol:

Get this bugger in the air and forget about that work crap for a week.

:beerchug:

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Posted

Paint is done! Shocked at how smooth this stuff sprays on. Most of blemishes blended in really well. From 10 feet away a person would never know what a pile of crap it looked like 4 days ago. Got all my hinge pin bushings installed but the pins are really really tight and I'm worried about friction. Anybody have an idea on the best way to ream out the nylon tubing just a tad? Next time I get out to the hangar I'll be putting my tail feathers back on!! After that I just have few odds and ends left then I can taxi her!!

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BEFORE today

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AFTER notice the big ol nasty patch that was on the side in the above pic. It's totally gone now.

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Still blows my mind how smooth the finish is. I am going to recommend that Floetrol to anybody. Gotta be careful not to spray too thick or it will run but it definitely lets the paint sit longer and smoothen out.

IMG_4973.jpg

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Posted

Looks nice, good paint job! Heat up one of those hinge pins, then quickly reinsert and remove. Will make a straight pin path even if the bushings are off a bit.

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Posted

Got my tail on this afternoon. I can't get the inner two hinge pins in though on the elevator. They are just slightly off and by the time you get to the end all it does is just push the bushing back out of the hole. I tried reaming it and trying different combinations of different pins to no avail. I finally gave up. Anyone have any tips for installing the elevator. I put the center pin in first and then then each end. Everything slid together nicely till those two inner pins. I forgot the camera but got these with my phone. Getting closer! Gotta hook up my new compression springs and the linkages and it should be about ready to taxi.

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I got those two stubborn hinge pins in today with the help of a buddy. I hooked everything else up and noticed that the wind was not blowing for the first time in a week. I couldn't help myself. I put about 1/2 gallon in the header tank jumped in it and taxied around the airport. Gotta make a few adjustments to the brakes and tailwheel but I was impressed at how easily it was to steer. I felt very comfortable in it right away. Couple shots of it in the front the hangar sporting her new N number. I'm going to do some graphics down the sides at some point but that's pretty low on my priority list. I've got my weight and balance appt this weekend, my conditional on the 12th, and the DAR scheduled for the week after that. She should be ready to fly SOON! Finally the end is in sight.

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Had this made by Aircraft Spruce

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Posted

Looking damn good Joey!

So can we be expecting test flights in the next week?

:beerchug:

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Posted

Looking damn good Joey!

So can we be expecting test flights in the next week?

:beerchug:

I am getting it weighed on Sunday morning. I want to make sure my CG is good. I still have a day of tinkering left too. Gotta flush the tanks yet and tie up a few loose ends. After I weigh it on Sunday if the wind is not blowing 25 like it usually does out here I'm going to plan on doing some taxiing out on the runway where I can start to get a feel for it, although everything I've read and heard it's pretty much all or nothing on the ground. I have all of 2 hours in the right seat of a Kitfox IV and a whopping 12 hours tailwheel time in an Aeronaca champ and my endorsement which is just about enough to be dangerous. I have 200 hours in Cessna's and Pipers but I'm thinking very little of the hands on portion of that is going to apply. I read the pamphlet "How to fly a Kitfox" that should suffice right?  :hammerhead: I will also feel better about flying it after my conditional on the 12th. Sometimes no matter how many times you look at something you can't see the flaw until someone else points it out. Soon though... soon  :buttrock:

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