Step 13.4, Main gear

With the majority of the painting done I can finally get on to some more interesting stuff eventually leading to the hanging of the engine.  My first task with my newly painted fuselage is to get it off of the rotisserie.  Here's a picture from way back showing the rotisserie:

Removing the fuselage is much simpler to to say than it was to accomplish.  My first thought was to move it on to some saw horses, but that would require two moves -- the second being from the saw horses on to the main landing gear.  Being naturally thrifty when it comes to expending physical effort, I think one move sounds better since two moves will take longer. And let's not kid ourselves, my very presence in the same room as my just painted fuselage puts it at significant risk for some kind of damage.

First up, installing the left gear.  Using the rotisserie, I roll the fuselage over allowing easy access to the left landing gear mount.  The left gear slides right in with firm pressure and a little grease in the socket. Then I let that side down until the wheel is resting on the floor.  This is where the trouble starts.

I have a great deal of difficulty wiggling the rotisserie off of the fuselage. The contributing factors were: The shop was hot and I was in a hurry because we were about to go out to lunch. However, the proximal cause I identified as binding on the forward rotisserie bearing. The binding was caused by the off axis angle that the fuselage makes relative to the rotisserie when the fuselage is made to slip past the tail end of the rotisserie for assembly or disassembly.  This was a shortcoming of my rotisserie design that I discovered when I first put the fuselage on the infernal contraption.  If there ever is a version 2.0 of the rotisserie, it will have a removable bearing top at the front and back that would allow the fuselage to be lowered straight down, thus preventing many bad thoughts.

Getting in a big ass hurry is a time honored tradition for me and a recipe for disaster. Although I was vaguely aware of this at the time, I still had an acute case of get it done-itis, which of course trumps rational thinking.  No need to prolong the suspense any further... Nothing bad happened.  The rotisserie was unbelievably stubborn, but I was eventually able to get it out from under the plane, but not before getting grease all over me, the rotisserie, and the landing gear.  I kept touching the rotisserie bearing which is greasy while looking for a hand hold to pull. Why I couldn't remember not to do that I don't know, but I had to stop and wash my hands about 5 times during the process which only elevated my level of aggravation.

With the rotisserie out, I could lift the fuselage up onto a jack that I placed under the right side main spar.  I was thinking the whole time that the jack was not exactly stable and that if it slipped, it would punch a 4" hole right through the passenger side floor.  It was not unreasonable to be thinking that this was a real possibility because I could see it slipping a little as I was vigorously wiggling the right landing gear back and forth while trying to force it upwards into its socket.  Back and forth, up and down, I was applying a great deal of pressure to no avail.

I find my patience with others greatly compromised when I'm preoccupied by a mechanical contrivance with a flair for noncooperation.  I'm sure the gentle reader will agree that when a thing that must fit, doesn't, it's extremely maddening. At this point I'm out of breath from trying to force the gear and I've only made about 1/2" of progress into the gear socket.

So Carol has had about enough of my ever increasing state of agitation, and heads back up to the house.  I am still in a hurry, but I decide to take time out to just sit down and study the geometry of the gear leg. Why is it so much more difficult than the left gear?  I make some small adjustments to the jack allowing me to get a better angle on the gear. I find nothing at all to give me any confidence whatsoever that my next assault on the summit would be any more fruitful.  Never-the-less, I decide that I would make one more big push and then go to lunch. Three or four more minutes of really hard effort and it finally capitulated to my will.  Ahh-ha, ha, ha. (crazed maniacal laughter).  It was a fustercluck to be sure, but I had my airplane sitting on its main gear for the first time.  

And the reason for all of the mechanical intransigence?  Paint.  When the gear was fully seated, it was apparent from looking at the open end of the gear socket (inside the cockpit), that it had peeled a very thin layer of paint from the inside of the socket tube as it was pushed through.  I thought I had the tubes blocked off for painting, but some paint must have gotten in there anyway. 

So here it is on the gear for the first time.  Note to self:  That black rotisserie spindle is very greasy.

Step 13.3, Painting the Fuselage

In early 2010, long before I even began the RV-7A project, I was planing to paint it.  The design of my paint booth depended on the size of my airplane's fuselage.  And the size of my shop depended in part on the size of the paint booth.  It is a really good feeling to finally be at this point now and I am pleasantly surprised to find that the fuselage which is the largest single piece that I will have to paint on this project, just fits.

There were minor dings that were hammered flat and some that needed filling and when that was complete the fuselage was rolled into the booth for primer.

After priming the fuselage was rolled back out for sanding and another round of minor body work.

And then the real fun begins.  Laying out the stripes.  

To lay out the stripes I wanted to first make a paper template so that I could be sure that the stripes would be identical of both sides of the aircraft.  To make the template, I taped some paper down along the length of the fuselage and then went to work adapting my paint scheme drawing to the full sized aircraft.  I went to a lot trouble calculating angles from my drawing, finding tangents at selected points along the curve and then transferring those points to the template in an effort to replicate the drawing exactly at full size.

The big problem with this approach is that it doesn't take into account that the transformation from drawing to fuselage is a transform from 2D to 3D.  Although when viewed exactly straight on from the side the resulting stripes did look like the drawing, there were certain angles that were aesthetically challenged.

In the end, I did a lot of adjustment by eye, as it were, to get the flowing shape I was initially going for.  Once the template was complete the fine-line tape is applied to the fuselage along the edge of the paper, recreating the shape of the stripe.  Flipping the paper over gets the same stripe on the other side of the plane.

Here a stick is employed to hold the rudder cables out away from the fuselage during the painting process.

The first stripe pained is the silver stripe.  The photo below is after the stripe has been painted and the re-taping process is underway.

The stripe is taped off and cover with masking allowing the blue stripe to be completed.  Once both stripes are done the white can be laid down.  Here Carol is preparing the masking for the blue stripe.

Finally, the white goes on and the fuselage is done:

Now, I start the whole process over on the vertical stabilizer and rudder:

There is still a lot of work to do on the paint; the cowling, the wheel pants, and the landing gear fairings, for example.  But the vast majority of the hard work on the painting is done.  The remaining pieces are manageable in size and should not be a major time sink like the fuselage and wings were.

Before I take the fuselage off of the rotisserie, I'll attach the four antennas that go beneath the plane (2 COMM, 1 Transponder, and 1 ADS-B IN).  That leaves 3 antennas to attach on the top side, but I'll save that for later.