Lindy
12/17/2009
More spinner fitting tonight...First I removed the plastic from the prop blades in order to fit the spinner with the proper clearance. This prop is awesome...just awesome. Maybe I'm biased, but it's awesome. I put some masking tape around the blade roots to keep the fiberglass from scratching the crap out of the paint.
After a good hour or so of sanding/fitting/sanding/fitting with the Dremel sanding drum, I had the fit I wanted. It's a bit more than recommended, but with a composite prop and the potential flexing, I wanted a bit more clearance than 1/16"-1/8". It's just barely bigger than 1/8"...
All three blades fit in to the spinner nicely...
I took this pic to show the amount of trimming I have to do on the back edge of the spinner. I have about 3/16" of an inch that needs to be trimmed to get the gap back.
To set up for drilling the first few holes, I taped the spinner in place with some duct tape...After I took this pic, I removed the spinner because I realized that I hadn't tightened all 6 prop bolts...only two had been tightened at this point, but I wanted all six tight to drill the holes.
Then I marked the exact center of the spinner with a red Sharpie. The way to check that the spinner is true, you clamp a pencil to a ladder (or anything that is tall enough), and position it so it's hitting the center of the dot. Then you remove the top plugs from each cylinder, and spin the prop by hand, watching the pencil to make sure it stays in the center of the dot. I had a small adjustment to make, but once it was set, I spun the prop a good ten times to make sure it was true. This thing BETTER be straight when I start the engine for the first time!
Happy with the way it was tracking on the pencil, I drilled three holes in each section between the blades. I'm not sure if I should put another hole between each hole I drilled tonight or not...that would make a total of 15 screws in the rear bulkhead. The plans call for 14 screws with a two blade prop, but give no indication of how many to use with a three blade. More drilling next time on the front bulkhead, and I'll be working on the gap covers for behind each blade.
A couple days ago, I ruined one of my "lightweight" seatbacks, unfortunately. I was trying to be careful in getting out of the airplane knowing that the seatbacks were a question mark, and I got the answer I didn't want when my hand pushed thru the mesh. These are junk now, so I bought a set of finished seatbacks from a guy on VAF. The timing was perfect...the day after I ruined this seatback, he posted a set for sale. Done.
2.5 hours