Build Update March 31: Firewall Forward Finishing

Over the last couple weeks I've been checking off everything left on the firewall forward installation.

I painted the inside of the cowling with an acrylic paint to protect the fiberglass from oil and engine gunk.

Here I used spot filler to fill all the little depressions. I used a old card to push it into the surface and then let it dry.

Once it was dry I sanded the surface flat.

Here I glued in the eyeball vents.

Here I installed my new spark plugs and routed the cables from the ignition coils to the spark plugs. I gapped the plugs according to the aerovee manual.

Here I installed the CHT probes and then reinstalled the intakes.

Here I finally got to glue in the blockoff I made months ago for the fuel filler neck. I gooped it up with plenty of RTV and slid it in.

After plenty of sanding and priming I finally decided it was time to stop the endless cycle of sand and prime and throw some color on.

My paint scheme will have the cowling be mostly orange but I'm not going to add the orange until I do the vynil wrap so that I can match the colors best.

Here is what should be the last label I put in a wire. And with that, my electrical system's ends have all been tied off.

This is the most exciting part of the whole cowling build. I finally got to put the guns on. I had made test parts to practice gluing the guns but now it was time to do it for real. Because of the shape of the cowling it was a little harder to pin them in place. I was able to to rig some stuff to hold all the guns squared and centered. In the end they ended up great. I am now, correct me if I'm wrong, the only Sonex with nose cannons.

The instrument panel is getting closer and closer to finished and a few days ago I finished my custom labels.

Now I finally got the side panels glued and test fit in.

Here is my notebook page, this is just over the past 2 weeks and all the stuff that's been checked off is crazy. There's a bunch of other small tasks that have been wrapped up.

Here is the southcos all nice and installed

As I'm checking off that last details before the first engine start it was finally time to buy oil for the first start. I will be live streaming the first start Wednesday evening April 1 on YouTube. I will post on Facebook and the sonex builder forum when we go live so keep your eyes peeled.

Build Update April 5 2018: Dissasembling the Aerovee

The engine I bought was already built, and had not been run. My dad and I planned to take it all apart to give me a better understanding of the engine, as well as to identify any problems before they got bad. The Arovee engine was heavy and awkward to move. at the time it was sitting on the workbench with everything installed. Going into this I had only enough sense to tell you which cylinder is the #1, 2, 3, and 4, and I knew some of the terminology, such as crackshaft. I frequently asked my dad "what do you call that part?" we began unbolting stuff in roughly reverse order from the manual (if you're familiar with sonex plans, you're used to backwards) In under an hour we had stripped many of the external parts off and the engine had lost at least 20 pounds! A box was designated as the hardware box, so it'll be like legos trying to find the right bolts and nuts again when I reassemble it. the important part is that they're all together and no...

Plane Painted

When I flew my plane to OSH23, I saw an artist painting a small depiction of an airplane. She was painting a very small photorealistic scene from a phone image. I could not believe how detailed she was able to make it! She let me watch over he shoulder as she worked. I was so impressed that I commisisoned a similar painting of my sonex. Id like to share that painting with you all. Her name is Rhonda DeGarmo. She has a lot of other work. If you're interested in getting in touch with her please reach out to me and I will pass along her information.

Build Update March 15 2020: Prime Time

So everyone is kinda freaked out over corona lately. My gymnastics competitions have been canceled, and so have my classes. This has been great for building, I've got all week and maybe more to get some great work in. I have been doing all the last things on the cowling before it's time to prime and paint. The final few things were adding my quarter turn southco fasteners, finishing the air exit cutout, and doing a final sand. (if you can ever even say final and sand in the same sentence) Then it's time to prime. The southco process started by going to southco's website to order an assortment of different sizes. When I completed my order the shipping cost came out to like $40, which was clearly wrong. I was ordering less than 20 studs. It would fit in a flat rate envelope easily. So I scrapped my southco order and went to Aircraft Spruce to order my cheese platter of sizes. The shipping there was much more reasonable and I combined it with some other items I n...

Isaac Shultz's Sonex Project

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