Slowly making progress on the panel.
As you will see below I did decide to follow Pete's idea of separating the panel into two sections.
I've also angled the lower section some more (17 degrees) - so all the instrument screens are perpendicular (from the pilots point of view).
To make the flange I used the same methods I've used before. Duct tape on the upper part so it releases, then stirring sticks on each side held on with Bondo to hold the panel at the right angle while the whole thing sets.
I used 8 layers of glass for the flange - which may be a bit overkill - but it has to support the upper panel at the bottom and also I had to rivet 3 anchor nuts to it - so it had to be quite substantial.
As you can see below I've cut out the holes for the EFIS (and installed it's mounting tray), ASI, ALT and Compass holes are done too.
The EFIS must be mounted as close to horizontal (wings level) as possible as there is no way to correct it (you can correct pitch). The same goes for Yaw so I spent a lot of time with spirit levels getting things just perfect before cutting the EFIS hole out.
I'm still working on the GPS mount and hole.
The GPS mount I bought is an Air Gizmos type and allows you to remove the GPS easily (I will want to do this as I use it in my car too).
The Air Gizmos mount is a bit ugly though and normally mounts with quite a bit of plastic in front of the panel.
I've decided to mount it behind the panel and so make it much more hidden - with only the GPS and the release handle visible. Should be a much neater look when it's done.
More about that and the lower panel section in the next post.
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| Making the panel flange - setting angle with stirring sticks |
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| Duct tape on the top to release it |
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| Here you can see the lower panel angle |
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| Trial fit of the ASI |
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| Making progress on the top panel. |
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