| day |
notes |
hours |
| 1 |
Trim glass cupboard sides to length. Fit new bandsaw blade and spend some time tuning it, including dismantling of cover switch to clear dust blockage. Split some square stock diagonally to make corner braces. Position at ends of side pieces with hot-melt glue and fix with screws. Attach top & bottom pieces, cramping with Axminster Power Tool Centre 50" clamp-guides to line up for drilling and screwing. |
|
| 2 |
Cut hardboard to size for glass cupboard back and screw it on. Decide that something in front of the heater would be useful to prevent burns to the person and snags to the glass. If thick enough, could also be used to mount hinges with long woodscrews instead of using machine screws and backup plates. Find a piece of mahogany windowsill just the right size. Unfortunately it has a bit splintered off one end, so will have to be tapered off. Clean off sealing gunk with hot-air gun and chisel. Clean up all surfaces with a mixture of power and hand plane, and sand to soften all edges and give snag-free surfaces. |
|
| 3 |
The broomshafts I had are just too short; get 3-off 5-foot ones from Robert Dyas. Bore holes to fit them. |
|
| 4 |
The 15-amp heat-resisting flex in stock is too fat to fit either the heater entry or the thermostat (using the one already in stock, intended for resin cupboard); get some 6-amp from Modern Radio. Fit and wire heater and thermostat. Fit hinges with spacers to base of cupboard, using 3"x10 woodscrews into mahogany strip. Cut off, drill and tap lengths of steel for hinge backup plates on door. |
|
| 6 |
Fit shelf brackets to top & bottom of glass cupboard. Start clearing area where it will go on wall. Order 2kg dry-powder fire extinguisher from Screwfix. Order tailwheel mod from Graham Singleton, for delivery at the Club Christmas dinner on 9th Dec in Coventry. |
|
| 7 |
Clear wall area for glass cupboard, and remove one power socket. Reconnect ring circuit temporarily with a junction box until I decide where to re-site socket. Fire extinguisher delivered. Offer up cupboard using adjustable stands that I rescued from the Pump Room skip, and mark bracket hole positions. Drill, plug and hang cupboard. Start to fit door, supported on one of the stands, and find I need to enlarge the screw clearance holes slightly. That done, the brass machine screws go more easily through the door and into the tapped backup plates. Hold back the top of the door with a rope between the ends of the top broomstick while working on hinges. Cut off a couple of bits of aluminium angle, on which to mount the handles (ex Mr Wishmore double-glazing at Trimley!). These will be mounted with M5 countersunk screws from inside the cupboard into tapped holes in the angle (couldn't find any countersunk screws long enough for nuts). The handles will be mounted on the angle with 4BA screws and nylon locknuts. |
|
| 8 |
Drill and tap aluminium angle for handle brackets, attach handles and fit to glass-cloth cupboard. Drill ends of broomshafts for split pins — wall pier only allows entry one way so pins only needed one end. Take some pictures of completed cupboard. |
|
| 9 |
Hook up power to glass-cloth cupboard temporarily with Safeblock. Heater emits tiny wisps of smoke at first — must be a bit of grease burning off. Put thermometer/hygrometer in cupboard to check performance. Reaches 20C quite quickly but humidity still over 80%. Increase thermostat to 25C, and it reaches that temperature readily, but humidity barely changes. Check again several hours later, just before going to bed, and it has only got down to 74%. |
|
| 10 |
Humidity in glass-cloth cupboard down to 65% by this morning. In comparison, the fan heaters reduced the humidity in the garage from about 80% to about 50% after only a few hours running, and not even flat out, just thermostat setting 3. Must be moisture in the wood taking a longer time to disperse than that in the air alone. Order CS29, pushrod and ends from Europa Aircraft for Graham Singleton's tailwheel mod. Mount fire extinguisher on wall near sink. Work out how to best use existing wood stock for resin cupboard. Looks like the resin pump will hold a full can of resin and hardener, so that is one less to store. However, in looking at the pump, noticed that the valves in the bases of the containers were looking somewhat rusty and shedding some flakes. I'd have expected stainless parts for the sort of prices these things are. Blew out the dust and tried pumping a little acetone through each cylinder of pump. Seems to be some leakage past the piston rings, but that may be only because of the much lower viscosity of the acetone compared with the resin components. Will have to check instructions for service procedures. At bedtime, glass cupboard humidity down to 60%. |
|
| 11 |
Glass-cloth cupboard humidity down to 56% this morning. Trim 18mm ply to size for back of resin cupboard. Make hollow sides from ex-BTL display MDF & framing. Fill centres with expanded-polystyrene foam which is just the right thickness. By evening, glass-cloth cupboard humidity down to 50%. |
|
| 13 |
Glue & screw triangular fillets to resin cupboard sides for shelf support. Screw sides to cupboard back. Cut base and main shelf pieces out of old 18mm ply. Attach corner fillets and heater brackets to bottom. Glass-cloth cupboard humidity down to 40% by the evening. |
|
| 14 |
Glass-cloth cupboard humidity 35% this morning. Start to construct resin cupboard top from 9mm ply and same 44x22mm framing as sides. Parts delivered from Europa Aircraft for Graham Singleton's tailwheel mod (CS29, pushrod & ends). Glass cloth cupboard humidity 40% in afternoon, 36% in evening. |
|
| 16 |
Set glass-cloth cupboard thermostat up to 30C to see how much that might affect humidity. Comes down to 30% quite quickly. Considering how quickly the temperature rose to 30C, I'm glad I fitted a thermostat. Finish resin cupboard top & fit fillets. Roger Huttlestone phones to say he can deliver the outstanding trailer bits including the fuselage dolly tomorrow morning at 08:30. |
|
| 17 |
Roger & Tony deliver fuselage dolly, wing dollies, tailgate bolts, & winch mounting plate. Glass-cloth cupboard humidity down to 25% this morning, but came up to 30% again later. Turned thermostat down to 25C again. Drill holes for assembly of resin cupboard, and for internal air circulation. Assemble it (except for doors which are not yet finalised), fit heater & start wiring thermostat. |
|
| 18 |
Finish wiring resin cupboard thermostat. Temporarily remove another power socket to make room, and hang resin cupboard on wall. While blowing dust out of mounting hole drilled in wall, fine filter & associated tap breaks off compressor regulator — a fatigue failure. Fixing that will take a while. |
|
| 20 |
Choose some ex-double-glazing aluminium extrusion and some plastic curtain track to act as mounting slots for resin cupboard heater cover. Aluminium already has mitred end which fits corner fillets, so mitre other end when cutting to length. |
|
go to list of milestones
go to previous page of journal 
go to list of narrative pages
