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Finishing Kit >
Section 45 : Cabin Doors / Transpancies
Windows
 I decided to go with the Lord 7545 adhisive to mount my windows instead of the weldon that is reccomended in the manual. I purchased mine from another builder that had extra.  Positioning and test fitting windshield  Taping up and getting ready to glue door windows.  Door windows glued up.  Layed up 2 strips of s-glass over edge of window. Followed by micro and lots of sanding between.  Windshield fairing layed up.  Peal-ply on top. Used toner to make the layup black so that it will look better from the inside.  Rear window installed, and layed up.  First coat of micro.  3 Coats of micro total, then UV-smooth prime. Faring came out great in my opinion.  Side of front window.  Side window after micro and smooth prime.  With broken hand I could not do much other than painting and sanding, so coated rest of top with UV-Smooth prime, and then sanded down. No more pink top :) Most of fiberglass is now ready (or close to ready) for paint.  Doors after priming.  Doors on the plane with the windows in. Feels like I am on the home-stretch, but know I have 15-18 months more to go. |
Finishing up the doors
7/17/12 - Cut out high spots on window flange and re-fierglassed the covering insert. Added holes for automotive christmas tree pop snaps. and trimmed to door.   Sanded door insert, and sanded door edges that will get paint. Applied micro. Started door lock. Found I needed to dissassemble the racks to finishe everythingk. Finished door lock App  lied headliner to fiberglass insert.Applied smooth prime to door. Epoxied in magnets for sensores and test fit sensors. Doors are done and put away except for the windows and exterior finishing. 7/20/12 |
Finishing the doors
First I added flox to the edges of the doors where they were not tight enough to the frame. I did this by putting packing tape on the door frame, and packing tape on the inside of the door edge, overhanging the door surface. I then closed the door and filled the area with flox. The packing tape on the door holds the flox flush. Then when it dried I used a belt sander to sand it down to a nice gap, and sand it flush with the surface of the door on the inside and outside.  Then taped off around the windows and used a 6"putty knife to spread micro on the surface of the door seam. This got any low spots on the door or frame filled with micro. As soon as I got it all the way around the door I opened the door as it had filled in the gap and the door would have been permenently sealed if I had not. This did leave a little jagged edge on the door and frame, but after drying was quickly sanded down smooth with a belt sander.    For the interior of the door I am going to cover them with headliner material. I am making fiberglass inserts which will be held in with pop fasteners so that it will have a clean edge, and cover the latch mechanism. I got this from Brandi.  First I cut out some cover panels for the hinge areas. I used excess door trimings from the initial trimming of the door.  I also made covers for the pin guides. I am going to use RTV to hold the pin guide covers in place, so that they can be removed if the pin guides need replaced or adjusted. A cover is needed so that the door seals have something to press against.  2 layers fo fiberglass cloth over top.  Then Micro. after sanding the cloth layup.  Then covered door in packing tape as a release agent. 2 layers of cloth and then peal-ply. I used ziplock bags filled with sand to press the cloth into the door reseses. The first door I did this to I had a lot of wrinkles after it was dry. I used a belt sander to sand out the high points of the wrinkles, and then added addtional cloth over the thin or missing spots.  Second door came out much better. Next I need to put the doors back on the plane, and mark the edges of the door seals. The headliner can't overlap the door seals as they are already tight. I will paint the edges where the headliner does not cover. I still need to put all the windows in, but am waiting on the firewall work before ordering the glue which has a shelf life. |
Finishing door latches
Assembled the latch & handle. A roll pin is put through the assembly which acts to keep the handle in place until the button is pressed, keeping it from turning accidentally. I found I had to file the oval opening in which it is supposed to slide quite a bit so that it would slide freely when the button was pressed. Finished installing door latch and planearround center latch. Overall the door latches took as long to complete as the fiberglass fitting. (not finishing).  Laying out the parts to see how they will fit.  Holes cut and racks in door.  Latch installed. It took quite a bit of wiggling to get the gear into the racks. Finally I took some masking tape and used it to pull the racks to the top and bottom and to hold them, and the gear went in better..  Drilled the holes for the pins to go through, then added the pin guides. Overall the latches, and especially the planearrownd center latch instructions are difficult to follow. The planearrownd instructions expect you to be retro-fitting it in an existing installation, so you bounce back and forth between Vans and planarrownd instructions. It would be nice for planearound to re-do their instructions for new installs. Doing some of it before the door halves are glued would probably have been easier as well.  Latch installed and center latch.  Door opener installed.  It holds the door open! Main fitting and installation of doors is complete. |
Squareing Cabin Top
The vans directions call for putting a 45 deg bevel on both the cabin top and the doors. From blogs and looking at planes about half of builders are putting the bevel in, and the other 1/2 are squareing them off. I have decided to square them off. First of all if they are at the 45 then the door might hit/sit on the cabin top instead of fitting against the door seal. Second, I think it will be easier to get an even gap as I can always build up the door or frame with more epoxy. The cabin top door edge is rounded, so I needed to build it up to be square. (At paint time I will put a 3/32 curve on it so the paint won't chip as easy).  I put some packing tape on the edge of the door frame, and then mixed up some epoxy-flox to toothpaste consistancy. I then pushed it down to the packing tape filling it up passed flush with the doorframe.  After it set I then used my small belt sander to sand it flush with the doorframe and cabin top. This method worked very well and I had a nice square edge after the first sanding. At first I only did this on one side of one door to see how it worked out. Next day I did the rest of the edges. Once I am done with the door latches I will re-install the doors and probably need to tweek the doors to get the final edge. (Also want to have the cabin top permenently attached before finalizing the doors.) Getting the edges square only took a total of about 2 hours. |
Door latches
Wow, not this is not what I expected. It is the door latches that are driving me crazy. Just seems to take way longer then it seems it should. Lots of little things to do. Also trying to flip back and forth between the Vans instructions and the plane-arround. It would be really nice if plane-arround would fully replace Vans instructions, duplicating or referencing Vans where needed.  First set of parts constructed and match drilled.  Handle match drilled to door.  Marked for center latch (plane-around)  Hole cut. Used dremil and files to cut it.  Parts layed out to help understand how they fit.  Pin guide sanded. Upper one is how it comes, lower one is fit for the door. Used bandsaw and then belt sander. Have about 8 hrs in the door latches at this point. (Pin guides drilled to doors. Center gear in door). Probably have another 8 hrs to go on the latches. |
Triming and Hanging doors
Well the epoxy has cured for 24 hrs, so it is time to trim the doors. First up is removing all the clecos that are epoxied in. It takes some yanking and pulling to get them out, but not any power tools.  I then used an edge finder (similar to the hole finder), just take a peice of shim stock bend a 1/2" 90 deg angle, then about 4" straight, fold it back on itself, and then drill a #30 hole centered on the 90 deg bend. Place the bend over the edge of the fuselage, and a marker in the hole and trace out the edge of the fuselage on the door. I then also based on hits from http://www.azcloudflyer.com/ made some attach brackets for the index cleco points. Getting the door to sit exactly in the same spot I think is key to fitting the door without so much frustration.  I trimmed to just outside of the lines, and then sanded down to the edge of them with a small belt sander. The first door (left) went well, it probably took 10-12 times off and on (just using the index clecos to hold it on) before it fit well all the way around. Then I attached the hinges (with it clecoed using the index holes), but then found it still shifted some when it was only supported by the hinges. I improved the process for the right door: Right door: Marked using edge finder. Cut and sanded until all the marker was gone. Then test fitted.  After the first try the majority of the door fit nicely. Mark where there is still overlap and sand some more.  To get a straighter line then just hand marking where I need to trim, I used masking tape edge to mark my sand-to lines. Needed to take a little off the top and a few spots on the edge still.  View from the front at the 3rd try showing it still is up a little.  After 4 times (1.5 hr) the right door is fit well enough to put the hinges on. Don't worry about perfect gaps yet, as I saw on the first door, it will shift a little with the mounting on hinges, and then again when the latches and seal is done.  Hinges were then installed. I followed the instructions, but instead of using the reference line to make sure the hinges were on the same plane, I took a piece of angle aluminum, and cut the center section of one face out so that it could rest on the cabin top, but still have parts that would go down next to each hinge face. So the 2 faces were exactly parrellel. After drilling 1 hole in each hinge, then clamped the hinges to the angle to get them aligned, and then match drilled the other holes. This was quick and precise. Each door then needed a little additional trimming (sanded while still on hinges) to get them to fit. They both shifted rearward a little (1/8 inch at bottom). After doors were hung found I needed to shim under both hinges (.050 stock used part of the insturment panel) to bring the door surface up to the cabin top. 19 hours total so far. |
Starting Doors
Well the doors are supposedly one of the hated areas of the kit that take forever. So far I am not seeing them as that bad, but maybe I am just being optimistic. Most RV-10 blogs show the doors taking 170-190 hours. I don't think mine are going to take that long.  Doors come in 2 halves. The outer shell, and the inner one. First you trim them to size, and trim the window opening to rough size. Above is outer shell before trimming.  Trim lines marked. Around the window are 3 lines, the first trim line, middle drill line to drill holes for clecos, and the final (after halves are joined) cut line.  Inner door trimmed.  After trimming both halves, you are supposed to cleco them together in 6 places in premarked indexing holes. The lower 4 holes were aligned for me on both doors, but the upper holes were off by about 1/4 to 3/8 inch. In the picture above the red circled hole was the index hole, the new hole I drilled has the black cleco tip showing. This is a common complaint about the doors. Since I had read lots about the holes not matching up, I was able to just move on without worring about it.  Door Clecoed on to fuselage. It is being held on by one cleco on the front (to a hole left open in the fuselage), and one in the rear.  Use a hole finder to find and match drill the other open rivet holes in the fuselage. Hole finder was really easy to make out of some scrap aluminum and a few rivets.  Clecos in all the holes.  Attach door tightly to cabin top with clamps and tape, then match drill all the window holes.  Doors are then removed, and the halves are covered in thickened epoxy and glued together. As soon as they are together they are clamped to the fuselage so they bond in the exact curve of the fuselage.  All clamped up and drying. 8.5 hrs so far. |
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