Close up of the alodine bucket with the oleo struts. Soak time was 2-5 minutes each solution with water rinsing from the garden hose in between and after.
Here's the rear cabin heater ducts all alodined and drying. Nice even yellowing. Later, parts were not so evenly coated.
Here's the aluminum cabin heater ducting for the rear (we didn't have this previously so I got this from Earl Allen).
Control column cover getting alumapreped in the acid bath. It turns aluminum into a uniform gray color. This was the largest piece I did today. I used a sponge to keep the chemical "wet" on the part as best I could. Temperature was mid 60's the day I did this.
The next day I painted these parts after letting them dry overnight. I only did as many parts as I thought I could fit in my small paint cabinet. Even then, I had trouble doing parts management and had some parts touching others or falling over. Overall, the paint went on great and I am getting better at it. The large control column cover is the largest piece I have painted so far. In determining how much paint to mix, I decided to measure another couple ounces and I'm glad I did because at the end of the painting, I only had about a tablespoon left. I use Polyfiber's white epoxy primer. It's 2 parts and really makes a nice smooth surface. My first pass had some canckering or pinholes and I called their tech service, but they didn't get back to me. I looked up in my manual a possible cause while waiting between coats and found I probably was putting down too much paint so I adjusted my sprayer and got it right. On the next few passes the pinholes disappeared and I learned something about painting.
I got a ceiling speaker from Gary "Badrivermusic" from the Yahoo group (Thanks Gary!). I had previously made the diamond wood piece but didn't cut out the speaker hole until I got Gary's speaker. I used tinnerman nuts and 4 round-headed type B screws to install the speaker initially. I replaced the ceiling speaker attach screws which were round head with tapered screws in this photo. Now the grill finish piece fits cleanly over these screws which you will never see because they will be behind the headliner which will run continuous or be sandwiched between the wood piece and the aluminum grill/light. I also got the single pole switch from Aircraft Spruce and you can see the square hole where the old non-functioning plastic switch was. I drilled a 7/16 inch hole and trimed it out so that the switch would fit in place. Doesn't need to be finish-fit yet because we need to paint the grill.
I got these flat tinnerman nuts in my last shipment from Aircraft Spruce (AS) too. I thought these would make good attach points for the ceiling speaker/light grill in the above photo. These need to be fixed so that you can remove the screws blindly (?) without accessing it through the headliner. I previously got some cherry rivets from AS that were 3/32" diameter. They just barely fit above the tinnerman nut. I used the cutout scrap from the wood ceiling speaker grill piece to test if they will work. You can see the attached tinnerman and another that is lose.
Here's the other side of the piece so you can see how the protruding rivet head and screw look. I took a regular screwdriver to try and pry the tinnerman nut off and couldn't (couldn't pull the head through the tinnerman nut and couldn't get the rivet to pull through the wood), so I think this solution will work to mount the speaker/light grill to the ceiling.
After my test I went ahead and mounted all the flat tinnerman nuts on the diamond-shaped wood mounting piece. Here's the close-up of the blind tinnerman flat nuts I riveted in so that the decorative speaker grill/light can get screwed in after the headliner is installed. That is the back of the new single pole switch to turn the ceiling cabin light on and off.
Bottom of the panel before install. I think the next time I have a painting session, this part might be on the list to get primed. Would really like to get it final color painted too--someday. The headliner is sandwiched in between the grill and the wood panel.
Took a while to center this panel on the cabin ceiling held in place with clamps until I was satisfied it was square with the frame and centered. This is installed with the "J" clips I had previously primed and used stainless steel type B screws and #8 tinnerman nuts. Notice the 2 spruce wood pieces attached from each side. I don't think our bird had these installed, but I'd seen them installed on other projects online so I included them. I also saw that these wood pieces are possible attach points for the headliner so that was another reason for making sure they were installed this time around.
Here's an above shot of the panel installed. I intentionally left the spruce wood pieces long just in case. With it screwed in place on the fuselage, it really is secure and will not rattle around much. The light switch makes a good solid click sound when moved--very satisfying.
Installed bottom shot. I was thinking looking at this that our new shoulder harnesses will attach to the lateral frame just aft of the light on either side (pilot and co-pilot harnesses). During the headliner install and before fabric install, the harnesses will have to be installed. Next up is installing the floorboards and the cabin heater ductwork.
Installed the rear cabin heater register in the rear floorboard. I cut out the old hole from the floorboard and used it as a drill template to put the repainted duct in. Used some clamps to hold it steady.
Here's the assembled duct vent and the bottom plate in place. All new hardware. The carpet is sandwiched on this plate and the openable grill plate on top of the carpet is next. I'm going to polish that up so it is ready to install when I install the carpet.
Here's a below shot of the painted air duct into the rear floorboard. You can see a couple of the attaching "J" clips and tinnerman nuts and screws in the background.
I proceeded to locate and screw down the rear and middle floorboards using the old floorboards to help me place them accurately on the fuselage frame. I used tinnerman nuts below on the "J" clip and a type B stainless steel 8-32 screw from the top. Here's a shot of the mounted floorboards from the aft area of the cabin. I think I'll paint the battery box the red color we will paint the airplane with someday. Next up is to mount the front floorboards, install the flex ducting in the background under the floorboards, make rear wooden covers to the oleo strut area just in front of the battery box and make the wooden rear cabin panels.
