Pete had asked me if I wanted to join him at Warkworth for a bit of transition flying in the Vintage Gliding Clubs Bocian VH-WUH. I readily agreed and arrived at HVGC today at 9 am. I was given the job of installing the battery on the luggage shelf, and soon realised this was not…

Epoxied the last cross braces for the luggage deck and checked the antenna location. I noticed a cut in the white plastic antenna insulation which will need to be repaired using heat shrink. Also have to provide cable ties on the frame for the antenna and battery cables running underneath the deck. The battery cables…

The nut plates were fitted into the frames and secured with M2 stainless steel c’sk screws. I was going to use small wood screws but didn’t like the idea in the end. This is a much sounder way to hold the nut plates in their recesses. As I was fitting the nut plates, the postie…

Last week’s efforts: The fairings for the tailplane had cracks in them which were fixed by reinforcing with strips of glass epoxy, applying epoxy filler and sanding. They are ready for painting. The fuselage needed a few more spots filled, otherwise it’s ready for the top coat. We have next Monday pencilled in. In preparation…

Painting Day! Laurie picked up Pete’s spray gun as we had been unable to obtain a 1.5 mm nozzle for Laurie’s gun. Thanks Pete! When we started setting up, I hunted around the shed for the gun I had used all those years ago for the Aventura seaplane wings. Guess what: my gun is EXACTLY…

Had to check a few things in the shed yesterday. It was hot! In fact too bloody hot to do any work. 38 deg is just a tad too warm for me to do any shed work these days. Today was much milder and I was able to finish the sanding of the horizontal stabiliser…

The last few days have revolved around the luggage deck. Significant damage was found which needed assessment by Pete. Following his visit I delved further into this area. This shows the central support cracked along its entire length. At least conttributing to this failure waa the use of fairly large wood screws which likely initiated…

Finished off sanding with 120 grit this morning, only a bit of 240 to go (about 1/3 of fuselage), except for horizontal stabiliser. Then took out the rudder cable pulleys from the rear cockpit. As expected, they washed out with WD40 and run like new. It is confirmed that they are factory originals from 1977,…

More sanding. It goes a bit quicker with 120 grit followed by 240 (as opposed to only the 240).

Having decided that the top coat will be sprayed, the sanding has started. The dull area at the tail is todays’ effort with 240 grit. Based on todays’ work, it should take about 30 manhours to sand the fuselage and horizontal stabiliser – but I guess we did have a few chats while sanding during…