More Micro Projects While Waiting

For those of you still following along, you know that I am playing a marathon waiting game with Jan Eggenfellner, Viking Aircraft Engines, for the delivery of the long overdue wing tanks.  Oshkosh ended yesterday and the promised deliveries of wing tanks never occurred as promised.  Tantalizing pictures of fabricated wing tanks loaded in the back of a pickup truck appeared on the Viking Aircraft Engines portal.  A friend, also awaiting delivery, forwarded an email he received from Eggenfellner stating that he ran out of time prior to the big show to deliver to customers.  The drama continues.

In the meantime, I am trying to fill my time with any tasks I can see that need to be done independent of the wing tank installation.  I can't even finish the fuselage as flaperons must be fitted to the forward fuselage before I can install the tailcone, roll servo, back window and many other dependent parts.

So, here is what I've been doing:

Micro project #1. Replacing and re-wiring the control grips as I had apparently burned  out one of my grips by somehow backfeeding 12 volts through a ground wire, according to Kevin Tosten.  Being the great guy he is, he had me ship both grips back to him and he reworked them by installing new, upgraded and more conventional DPDT hat switches that have a much improved feel than the original hats (even though they were completely acceptable).  The guy charged me the princely sum of $10 for all his time and new parts!  I just can't say enough good things about Tosten Manufacturing and Kevin's products.  Below are a couple of shots of the re-worked unit going back into the shortened control stick.

Micro project #2. "Skinning" the instrument panels with a synthetic carbon fiber vinyl.  No in-process shots taken, just the final product.  I'm very  happy with the look and I must say that I got the three panel skins (patterns) all in pretty darned nice alignment.

The process consisted of cleaning and then priming the surface to be covered with 3M's Primer 94.  The primer promotes greater adhesion to the vinyl than just the adhesive of the vinyl itself.  The vinyl I chose is the 3M Di-Noc product in a flat black carbon fiber pattern.

I ordered a 24 x 48 inch piece of material and have about 1/3 left over after skinning all 3 panels plus the glove box door and a switch sub-panel.  As I progress in final assembly of the aircraft I will see if I have enough material left over to skin the center console between the pilot and passenger.

That's about all for now.  Stay tuned....one day, the project will resume it's normal pace.