Zenair CH601HD

[phaxtris]

Didnt have a whole lot of airplane ambition today, made a sign for the house with the cnc router, that led into working on the airplane, lol

Made up some re-enforcement tabs for the aileron hinge's on the cnc with some of the salvaged .025 LE skin.

The plans are designed around flexing the skin for the hinge, many guys change over to a piano hinge to reduce the stick forces in roll, as its reported by many to be quite heavy compared to pitch.

I will cut the extra aileron skin when i have the hinge in hand, for now it will stay long

 

[phaxtris]

Did some work on the cowl today, its pretty flimsy in the long sections with only 4 layers of cloth, it needs something to stiffen it up. So flimsy i had to make some temporary re-enforcements to hold the shape true while i glassed in the stiffening.

some 1/4 plywood i had laying around and high heat hot glue seemed to be easy and worked well for this task


i went with 3/4 foam backer rod cut length wise, i tacked it in place with the trusty hot glue gun again, and then covered the rod in painters tape, im not 100% sure, but i belive the polyester resin will eat the foam away on its own. I know it doesn't eat the tape



1 layer of chopped strand mat 3 ish inches wide, and then after this photo i added a layer of woven cloth about 3 inches wide over top the backer rod



Tomorrow will be the test, i know it will be stiffer, its just a question of how much stiffer, and weather or not it needs another layer over top the backer rod

 

[phaxtris]

Well I've don't plenty on the cowl, that bit of stiffing with the half round backer rod did wonders, it's as stiff as a board now, since then I've cleaned up the front openings, cut the oil door, worked on the air filter housing

But one thing I didn't like, the generator/alternator fills up one of the openings entirely, this is going to cause me grief doing the baffling, probably creat some cooling issues, and looks like crap.The motor has a pulley in the back (front in the car), its close to the same size, and there is enough room.

Here is what I came up with, I'm either going to use this as the trial run, I may make it from aluminum, it is surprisingly similar in weight to the brackets and oil filter plate it is replacing.

If I end up using the steel piece (after snazzing it up) I still need to add two an bungs for the oil lines

As a side benefit the generator/alternator/dynamo is heavier than one would think, moving it a foot an a half rearward can't hurt, I may need to duct some cooling air to it as well, not a big deal

 

[PeterT]

Steady progress. How to you spot check your center of gravity & weight as you are doing the build?

 

[phaxtris]

Steady progress. How to you spot check your center of gravity & weight as you are doing the build?

you don't weigh it until the end when everything is together and its ready to fly, if your cg is out to lunch there is the option of moving the battery as far aft as possible, or ballast. Most of the weight is typically in the front, so ballasting the rear is usually the solution, lead shot mounted as far aft in the fuse as possible.