Day: September 5, 2016

No big leaps forward today but some useful stuff done nevertheless. After having removed 77ASY’s screen, over the week-end I also pulled out and threw away the bits of old grey ribbed carpet tiles that someone had covered the top of the panel with. Then I asked the members of the microlightforum for ideas on what to put back and the consensus of those who responded came down in favour of ‘faux leather’ or what is known in the UK as leatherette.

I found some very nice looking material with a 3mm foam backing that looks very suitable and while looking through the products offered by the same seller, I also came across the kind of rough baize material that’s used for car boot linings, things like that. I liked that as well so I ordered a metre of each. I needed an invoice to take account of the adjusted carriage charge but after requesting one twice, one was still not forthcoming.

So I phoned the supplier in Manchester today and after twenty or thirty minutes on the phone, managed to get the order placed and paid for, for immediate despatch. But that wasn’t my only successful internet purchase.

Having spent a couple of hours or so searching for rubber extrusion suppliers, I also placed an order for the rubber trim strip that I need to go along the bottom of the new panel. I didn’t think it was worth contacting the French Savannah agent because I doubted that they’d have a length of trim in stock and would just have done what I did, found something that was close enough to what was originally fitted and then sold it to me after adding a ‘zero’ to the end of the cost.

So that was all the windscreen work that I could do. I thought about stripping out the window in 77ASY’s top panel, cutting out a new one and making a start on the little bit of painting that needs to be done. However, I decided against it and instead thought that it was about time for me to tackle 56NE’s prop repair as the prop in question has been standing ready on trestles in my kitchen for several days.

I thought that I’d be clever and try to colour the fibreglass paste to make it match more closely the wood from which the prop is made. However, I didn’t really succeed and it ended up a rather weird pinky-beige. I also think that my colouring technique has affected the curing characteristics of the fibreglass because having stayed soft and tacky for some time after it was applied, although it looked to be curing slowly, it still had a ‘tackiness’ to it, undoubtedly because of the small amount of paint that I added to it in an attempt to get the colour I wanted.

Later on I got a call from James at Malbec saying that he wanted to move 77ASY as he needed to get access to a large hedge trimmer attachment for the tractor that was stored behind it. So I went over in the late afternoon to assist and make sure that no harm came to the aircraft, which it didn’t.

I’d like to say that when I got back, my fibreglass repair was well on the way to being fully cured, but unfortunately I can’t. I’ll just have to wait and see what it looks like in the morning, I think. It’s not the end of the world though, is it 🙁