Several weeks ago Uncle G volunteered his lathe skills to cut the 2 x 3mm ply discs (they were a perfect fit Uncle G – thanks muchly) I needed to rebuild the firewall on the Stearman bipe. They have been sitting on the workbench ever since waiting for some non flying (read crap) weather.
This week the weather was pretty much all crap so first job was to finish installing the iNAV flight controller in the BumbleBee (the jury is still out on that one – no doubt the first flight will be the decider), second was to re-assemble the Islander BN2 with a new receiver & stabiliser ready for a test flight or sale (whichever comes first)
Finally today it was the Stearman’s turn.
First job was to finish tidying up the fuselage where the firewall attached.
Next was to cut all the notches into the inner ply disc so it would attach over the various spars etc then it was time to epoxy the the 2 ply sheets together & drill the various required holes etc, also installed the 4 captive nuts for the motor to mount onto.
Next was to epoxy the new firewall to the fuselage.
It’s definitely looking better already so now just waiting for the epoxy to set and reassembly can start.
Hopefully she will be ready to take to the skies again by the time the weather improves.