REFLECTOR: Nose Gear Doors

[Paul Folkes]

Hi Bob,

thanks.  I did something similar to get the bend in the doors to match the
contour of the fuselage, which is now good.  My problem is uneven gaps
between the door edges and the edges of the hole, because the hole is not
square.

Paul Folkes
XLRG
VH-VVX
*building but a looooong way to go.*



On 22 August 2013 12:04, Bob Jackson (Jax Tech) <bobj at jaxtechllc.com> wrote:

> **
>
> Paul,****
>
> ** **
>
> An alternative to filling the gaps is to bend the doors to fit the
> fuselage opening.  When we first fit our gull wing doors to the fuselage,
> the doors on both sides did not follow the exact contour of the fuselage,
> and the bottom corners of the door stuck out and in ~1/2" from the fuselage
> surface.****
>
> ** **
>
> We had great success in building a 'jig' involving 3/8" threaded rods,
> threaded through temporary holes cut into the door beams, and through 2x4's
> temporarily fixed to the insides and outsides of the fuselage for
> leverage.  By turning nuts on the threaded rod we could 'spring' the doors
> into proper alignment.  The next step then was to heat the door (multiple
> hot air guns and heat lamps until the door fiberglass was almost too hot to
> touch) so that the epoxy would 'flow' slightly and the door would bend
> slightly and assume the new desired shape that was flush with the fuselage
> skin.****
>
> ** **
>
> I think you only can do this 'trick' a few times before the epoxy begins
> to 'work harden' and will no longer re-flow and bend.  We learned
> trial-and-error that we needed to 'over-spring' the bending corrections
> (e.g., if we needed to move the door in 1/2", then using the nuts on the
> threaded rod actually bend it in 1" while heating it up).  Once we heated
> it up with something like twice the correction needed, once it cooled down
> after a few hours and we removed the rig, the door would loose about half
> of the correction and spring back to 'about right'.  One or two cycles of
> this and our doors now fit perfectly!****
>
> ** **
>
> This doesn't seem to be a technique that too many people know about, but
> it worked great for us and I think it should also work on you nose gear
> doors.****
>
> Good luck!****
>
> ** **
>
> Bob Jackson****
>
> Turbo-Cross Country Velocity XL-RG****
>
> N2XF****
>
> ** **
>  ------------------------------
>
> *From:* reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Paul Folkes
> *Sent:* Wednesday, August 21, 2013 8:36 PM
> *To:* **Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list**
> *Subject:* REFLECTOR: Nose Gear Doors****
>
> ** **
>
> Hi all,****
>
> ** **
>
> I'm looking for some advice from the collective wisdom.  I am working on
> the nose gear doors.  I have an older, fast-build kit and have to make my
> own flange (no problem there). My problem is the hole cut out by the
> factory is not square and there are a few dings and chips from moves from
> garage to garage to hangar by the previous owner. This all means that there
> are some uneven and quite large (up to 1/4 inch) gaps around the
> pre-moulded doors that I need to fill and reshape to get the hole square
> with nice straight edges.  What is the best process and material for this?
>  I am thinking to cover the door piece in duct tape or saran wrap and hot
> glue or bondo it into place, wipe cabosil into the gaps around the door,
> and then sand square when cured.  Any comments, please?****
>
> ** **
>
> Thanks,****
>
> ** **
>
> Paul Folkes****
>
> XLRG****
>
> VH-VVX****
>
> *building but a looooong way to go.*****
>
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