A DAY OF SETBACKS – All Self Imposed

Ever have one of those days where you should have stayed home? Yesterday was one such day … a one step forward, two steps back kind of day …. more on that later. The work session began with filing the eyelets on the hinges that are on the curved portions of the fuselage skins. This is done so the piano hinge that will be attached to the cowling halves can be mated to the fuselage. Because of the curve, the outer edges of the eyelets on the hinge are closer to together … so the eyelets along the curve need to be filed a little to create a small angle that makes them somewhat trapezoid shaped.

Filing the edges of the eyelets that are on the curved portion of the fuselage. The edges are filed at an angle to form a trapezoid shape.


After the edges of the eyelets were filed per Van’s instructions, went to test fit the longer F-1201J hinge and here is where the wheels fell off and instantly ran into issues. Bernie had come by to visit and with his help, I was pushing the hinge pin in while he was trying to make the hinge conform to the curve, but the hinge pin kept binding up. We fought and fought with it for a very long time … removing the hinge and doing a little filing then refitting, etc. … the hinge just did not want to cooperate and conform to the curve. After fighting with it for quite some time the dim light went on and dawned on me, all along I had been trying to install the hinge upside down … DUH!!!  When the hinge was reshaped and flipped upside down, it fell right into place.

The F-1201J hinge installed “proper side up”.


The second setback for the day - it was discovered that all the rivet hole marks that were meticulously placed on the hinges were on the wrong side. I missed a note on the upper corner of the drawing stating:


“NOTE: Mark hole locations on the hinges so that when installed the
markings will be to the outside as shown in Figure 3”.


Although I missed reading the above note prior to marking the hinges, I blame some of the error on a very poor drawing in the assembly manual. Here is one case where a picture is worth a thousand words …. all profane. Below is a photo of the plans which illustrates how easy it is to mark the wrong side of the hinges if one misses the above note as I did. If the solid line that defines the loop for the hinge as shown in figure 2 were not there altogether or at least a dashed line, the builder would know the drawing is depicting the backside of the hinge. But no, they made it look like the front of the hinge not the backside.

The upper hinge material was marked as shown on the Figure 2 drawing … the lower hinge is positioned for the side that actually should be marked so the marks can be seen through the fiberglass when it comes time to drill (as pointed to by my finger). It is easy to see how a builder would mark the wrong side if the note mentioned above is missed and the builder uses the figure 2 drawing as sole reference as I did.


Being upset with myself for foolishly missing that note … not to mention frustrated with having the F-1201J hinge upside down for so long before catching the error, I was not in a good mood by this time. Decided it was best to pack it up for the day and head home early and get over it.