Chapter 16 - Step 5

This step involves adding the electrical and rudder cable conduits and the rudder cable in the fuselage.

Conduit Foam March 10, 2004. Here are two strips of foam 1" x 1.125" to be used to make the electrical conduit in the fuselage. They are made up of several pieces until I was able to get about 57" length for each. I then used clear box tape (it's what I had) and taped the two strips down. I drew two parallel lines on the table and taped the foam to the lines so they were straight. There is a 1.5" space between the two strips. I'm going to glass it all at once. This leaves me enough glass so each has a 0.5" flange with extra, just in case. There is enough tape around the foam and on the table so I can just glass and epoxy right on top.

Conduit Glassed March 10, 2004. I reached into my box of scrap BID and layed out scraps until both pieces of foam were covered. Once all the glass was in place I mixed up some epoxy and wet it all out. I wet out the glass between the two blocks, full length, then wet out from there. A little peel ply on all the seams and I now have two electrical conduits. The plans say to use 1 or 2 layers of BID - mine has 1 - I'm lazy.

Straightening rudder conduit March 10, 2004. I then cut out two lengths of Nylaflow tubing for the rudder cable conduits. They need to run straight in the fuselage and the tubing was wound in a tight loop. I clamped one end of the tubing in place and I then unrolled a bit, clamped down again, and did this over the length of the tubing. I'm hoping after a day or two the tubing will stay uncurled, at least enough to be easy to glue into place in the fuselage.

Electrical conduit in place March 21, 2004. Here is the front, right electrical conduit being floxed into place. I rolled the fuselage onto its side. This made it easier to flox the conduits into place. While here I will be working on the arm rests. After doing the right side I will roll the fuselage back over onto the left (my) side and doing everything over there.

Rear Right Conduit March 21, 2004. Here is the right rear electrical conduit in place. You can also see the tubing layed out for the rudder cable.

Front Right Conduit March 21, 2004. The right front electrical conduit in place. Getting ready to glue the rudder conduit into place.

Rear rudder conduit April 26, 2004. Here is the conduit secured in place. I used 5-minute epoxy full length to hold the conduit down straight against the electrical channel. I then added some BID tape every 6" using some flox as a fillet.

Front rudder conduit April 26, 2004. Here is the conduit in the front area. The map pocket has been added right up against the conduit. Like in the back, the conduit has been taped every 6" in addition to the 5-minute epoxy.