Door position

[rocketman1988]

The parabeam will fill the gap between the door sides in those locations and it will be really hard when cured...

[9GT]

I filled the cavities in my doors with expanding foam and let it cure in place in the fully closed position. It stiffened them up quite a bit and also provided a little insulation. I had to dig and gouge out clearance for the door hardware and plug the pour foam holes, but big deal.

[AviatorJ]

Trimmed fairly close to the scribe line, didn't want to over do it.



Question on getting this final trimming done, the plans suggest a 12" block with some 80 grit. I'm going to stay away from power tools on this step. My question is whats the best way to mark how far back I need to be and what's the final spacing that I'm looking for? Saw a video of a guy using a piece of scrap .025 aluminium as a guage. Seemed like a pretty good idea.

Any suggestions welcomed.

[rocketman1988]

I went round and round at this step. One school of thought is to minimize the gap. I started down this road but talked to some guys that had very narrow gaps. Some had issues once the doors and fuse were painted. The door does move forward and aft when being closed and they experience chipping paint at the gap. I opted for about 3/32" gap. It looks good to my eye, easy to create, and there won't be any interference with paint or the door moving when closed.

As far as creating the uniform gap, I followed what some other guys did. I cut the door so it would just fit inside the cabin top. I then went to Home Depot and bought some 60 grit Gator Grit paper disks. Tore the disks in half. Then you slide the half disk, grit side to the door, into the gap and run it back and forth around the door. It makes a really uniform gap. To make the gap wider, I stacked two half disks and repeated the process. The grit against the hook and loop side of the disk keeps it from sliding apart when you move the paper back and forth...

Worked for me...

[AviatorJ]

Use use gator pads on one of my sanders so have some 60s and 80s in the airplane factory already. I'll just took a few minutes and made a finger gauge out of some scrap with an approximate width of 3/32".

Thanks for the tip!

[AviatorJ]

Okay I have both doors mostly sanded where they fit into the recess. I still need to cut a few spots and then cut the index tabs off. I'm concerned that even with drawing lines and what not I may inadvertently shift the doors position, especially when drilling in the hinges.

I've seen some other builders essentially make index tabs out of scrap and then use this to keep the door in position for mounting while being recessed in the proper position. Is there anything that I need to be concerned with while doing something similar? Here's a picture from Justin T's build log.



Doing this will allow me to have the door in the final recessed position while working the hinge mounting. But wanted to check I wasn't missing anything before I did this.

[Kyle Boatright]

Originally Posted by AviatorJ

Doing this will allow me to have the door in the final recessed position while working the hinge mounting. But wanted to check I wasn't missing anything before I did this.

I did it that way and it seemed to work well. Match drill the hole into the tab, pick 3 or so locations to drill into the door, drill those, then cut the tab off and you're good to go.

[60av8tor]

Originally Posted by AviatorJ

Okay I have both doors mostly sanded where they fit into the recess. I still need to cut a few spots and then cut the index tabs off. I'm concerned that even with drawing lines and what not I may inadvertently shift the doors position, especially when drilling in the hinges.

I've seen some other builders essentially make index tabs out of scrap and then use this to keep the door in position for mounting while being recessed in the proper position. Is there anything that I need to be concerned with while doing something similar? Here's a picture from Justin T's build log.


Doing this will allow me to have the door in the final recessed position while working the hinge mounting. But wanted to check I wasn't missing anything before I did this.

I'm finishing up the rough work on my left door and I used the tabs as well. I can say that I over-thought the fit. The fact is that you can get a perfect fit with the tabs and then:

Hinges - perhaps a slight shift
Plane Around 180* / pins - perhaps a slight shift
Strut install, door seal, etc....

Not saying to not try to get it the best you can, just saying it moves a bit throughout the process - e.g. I had a very slight misalignment when I drilled my strut bracket which caused the door to shift aft just a hair when it was closed. Off to flox those holes and try again

[AviatorJ]

Originally Posted by 60av8tor

Not saying to not try to get it the best you can, just saying it moves a bit throughout the process - e.g.

I read that somewhere which is why I'm going to wait until I have it hinged, strut'd with the PlaneAround latching before I worry about the 3/16th gap around the edge. At this point I just want it to set in there.

[AviatorJ]

Okay working on hinges tonight, what is meant by Page 45-06 Step 3 - "Use three .125 thick scrap aluminum spacers to locale each cabin hinge to the walls of the hinge pockets...."?

Are they basically saying use them to ensure you have an 1/8th inch around each side? So doesn't really matter what you use... ie two epoxy stir sticks is 1/8th.