Needed to finish up a few things after the paint was done which are much easier while the top is on its back. One of those things was trimming the fiberglass substrate for the headliner. I did that by laying out paper to make a template, transferred it to the fiberglass and used aluminum sheers to cut it out.

Testing the fit on the right side.

The same thing was done for the left side.

I then spent some time installing the Map lights for front and rear passengers, overhead lights, and the Aerosport headset and seatbelt hangers.

I also got the headliner material in a Graphite color laid out to have a look at it all together.

I then put the door strut brackets back in and tested out the McMaster seal. The seal is actually a little short.. I guess I shouldn’t have cut it exactly previously. I suspect the build up with micro and paint is to blame. I may end up ordering another seal to make it perfect, as this is something you see every time you enter the plane.

Then it was on to doubling back and finishing a few tasks that I had left prior to permanently attaching the top. I had left the #12 and #19 holes un-countersunk in order to use Clecos while finishing the doors. So I countersunk them per the plans, installed the HW (loosely), and then applied a Flox/Epoxy mixture with a zip-lock bag with the corner cut out in the gaps between the lower half of the fiberglass door frame and the metal structure. I then tightened all the screws and cleaned up the edge to make a nice fillet all the way around.

Now my plan is to work on finishing the transitions along the bottom edge of the door with micro to match the rest of the cabin top. Then I’ll be working on final gapping the doors and painting them to match the cabin top.

Continuing from last time, I shaped the foam build ups that house the conduits into the switch pod with a long knife and sandpaper. Here you can see the basic shape I was after. There were some imperfections, so in the end I put a layer of epoxy flox over this whole structure to harden it up and provide a good base for filler on top. I’m leaving a gap for the support bar to go into place and get bolted down. I’ll then glass over this front area later once the cabin top is attached to the plane and make it look nicer.

Then it was time to start filling in the surfaces that will be exposed and painted with filler. Initially I chose to use a polyester bondo material called Evercoat Rage Ultra. I did the vast majority of the right side with this.. I wasn’t really happy with it in the end. I found it difficult to mix properly and it did really stink the garage up really badly. I then tried using the more generally accepted epoxy and microballons as a filler on the left side. This seemed to go much better. I felt like I could mix it up properly and fairly consistently each time and it was easier to spread. I also doesn’t smell at all.. I’m sure most of my struggle with the bondo was inexperience and sticking with it probably would have gotten better, but I decided to forge ahead just using the micro. I spent the better part of 2-3 hours sanding off the bondo that I had put on the right side until I was down to pink again.. . I then spent several sessions of filling and sanding.. filling and sanding the micro over all the exposed areas. Through this process, I learned that it’s ideal to mix up enough for the whole job and spread more than you’ll need rather than doing multiple fill and sand sessions. The thought here is that you’ll never mix the epoxy and micro to the same ratio between batches and the 2 different mixtures have different densities making it hard to sand well. So far I haven’t found it to be too much of a problem, but I’ve also not painted it yet.. so maybe time will tell. The below pictures are various stages of slathering on micro around the door pillars and flat areas in the door entries.

You’ll see below that I did end up spraying some black primer that I had lying around as sort of a guide coat prior to adding more micro. This can help see low spots easier as well as help as a sanding aide to not sand deeper than before. If you see black start coming through, you know to stop. In the end, I don’t think this was really needed.. I think judging with your eyes and fingers do just as good of a job in the right light.

The below pictures show a better profile of the build up into the switch pod. Here it’s still not perfect yet as I needed to fill imperfections and blend into the flat part a bit better.

Here I’m just about at the point of being happy with the overall shape and have little to no imperfections.

Once you’re happy with the contour of everything, you apply a skim coat of neat epoxy and I used a squeegee to move the epoxy around in all directions to fill in any pinholes. I then used a 4″ foam roller to smooth it out and let it cure overnight. The foam roller leaves some small “dots” from the nap of the roller which I will lightly sand after things cure.

I’m relatively happy with how it looks currently. By no means is it perfect, but I really just want something that is presentable and isn’t an eye sore. Next up is to paint it. The plan is to use a dark PPG epoxy primer and do a wet-on-wet application of PPG K36 high-build primer. There will likely be at least a couple of rounds of that building up the surface, block sanding, and repeating until the surface is as perfect as I can get it. Then a top-coat of paint will be going on after that. I’m planning of a charcoal and oxford white interior scheme, so this will be painted an Oxford White. I’m currently working of getting supplies together to build a temporary paint booth so I can shoot primer and paint in a reasonable atmosphere.

I started off by getting the center of the cabin top marked in the aft and forward positions as well as marking spots on the overhead console itself to align both the front and rear to the top. I also installed the top baggage bulkhead and the skin to keep the rib steady as it can be floppy otherwise. Below is a picture of the spreader I bar I used to hold the aft end up while drilling holes (not all the way through, just enough for a cleco to bite) through the flange and into the cabin top. The forward end was held with clamps in the door openings.

Once that was done, I took the cabin top off of the structure to work on finishing it upside down on the bench. First up was to sand down the high and ugly spots around the door frame and near the hinge pockets. It was such a nice day out that me and my son (who is up my butt constantly) went outside to make some fiberglass dust out there for a change. One note is that I am using a headliner material for the back half of the plane, so that area I don’t have to be too fussy with. I just need to make the areas around the doors pretty. As you can probably see from the pictures, the inside surfaces aren’t the best. I can say that this is the most recent top that is gel coated on the outside and the best quality that Van’s has put out yet. The 2 prior versions, especially the first, green color, one was really bad, and a lot more work to deal with for the early builders.

I then got the switch pod match drilled into place. This will house my light switches for taxi, landing, etc.. along with light dimmers for all interior lighting.

The overhead comes with a bar over the baggage compartment area to hang things on, if needed. I got to installing that by finding the center line and drilling the holes for screws to hold it in place.

I plan to do a matte clear coat on the overhead and leave the carbon fiber finished look. I think it’ll come out great. This is the 2-part clear coat I am using for the job (to be done later).

I then finished something I delayed a little but until I took the top off. I used the door strut brackets and wrapped them in packing tape and epoxy/floxed the area underneath of them. There were some gaps in the curvature of the fiberglass compared to the angle of the brackets and this provides a nice solid underlying surface for them to rest on. After curing, I popped them off and this is the end result. This side is the side that I used a washer to get the strut angled the way I wanted it, and you can see it is now permanently part of the structure.

I then worked on putting conduit runs on the back half of the overhead to easily run whatever I want/need through here. First to secure it, I copied what Dr. Mark in TX did with using zip ties and small pieces of metal riveted into shallow holes (same depth as the cleco holes) in the cabin top. This worked really well. Once done, I used some epoxy and flox to secure the areas between the ties so they don’t flop around and make noise.

Then it was time to run conduit in the door pilars. This will allow me to easily get wires up to the switch pod for all the functions intended. It’ll also allow me additional paths to get wires from the back of the plane down to the front, as needed.

Once cured, I used some Loctite Expanding foam to fill in the gaps around the conduit. This will eventually be covered over with some epoxy flox mix for strength, but can be sanded down to shape beforehand.

Even though I did decide not to use the Airward hinge reinforcements I bought, I did decide to use the backing plates on the interior of the cabin and door hinges on the door side. Here is a picture of the cabin side after attaching them with some epoxy/flox and using screws to hold it in place while curing. This will alleviate needing to fumble around with nuts and washers.

One of the last things I needed to do was to figure out lighting for the overhead prior to bonding it down permanently. Most lighting will end up in the metal panels that screw into the openings you see, so really nothing to do for those right now. I did, however, decide to put two small LED lights in the baggage area. So I centered those around the hanger bar drilled the holes, and test fit them in place.

I drilled some 3/4″ holes in the back of the switchpod to run the conduit into it and as you can see, I also drilled a couple of holes on either side of the overhead to more easily allow wires that come from the back and get them into the switch pod and down the conduit.

I decided to unroll the headliner material (graphite is the color name) that came in to see how it looks against the dark carbon fiber finish of the overhead console.

Then the time came.. to permanently attach the overhead to the cabin top! I used the 2 part Lord Adhesive from Aerosport Products for this job and made sure to use a release agent on the clecos so they wouldn’t get stuck!.

I then used some #6 screws and some epoxy/flox to attach the switch pod in place. You can see some squeeze out here, which I wiped up prior to finishing up for the night.

After things cured overnight, I then took all the clecos out. Sanded down some squeeze out and filled in the area around the switch pod with some more foam to start to shape the transitions from the door pillars to the switch pod. I’ll let that cure overnight and then I’ll sand it to a basic shape and then next up will be starting to perfect the surfaces around all of this for final paint.

Marking the scribe lines on the cabin top is one of the first things on the agenda when starting the cabin top. There are also a couple of flanges that are measured and marked to 3/4″. All of this to get a line to rough trim to.

I decided to use a jig saw with a Perma-Grit Carbide blade. It works really well and doesn’t leave too much dust flying around.

Shown are the trimmings from around the perimeters of the doors, along the mid fuse skins, the tailcone top forward skin, the windscreen, and around the rear windows.

These scribe lines are not very accurate and then begins arduous task of sanding the sides of the door openings to get the cabin top to fit between the structure. Lots and lots of sanding. Little by little, I was able to lower the cabin top down into the fuselage structure. I also bought something that I saw Dr. Mark (also building an RV-10 down in TX) suggest. That something was a Kayak hoist to help lift the top on and off relatively easily. Seeing I work 95% on my own, this was highly needed. The top isn’t terribly heavy,  but it’s very big and awkward to handle on your own.

Once the sides were sanded to make the top fit between the structure, it was then time to sand the bottom door edge. This is to both make sure it rests against the door frame decks relatively flush as well as to lower the front a bit to get the flange of the mid-side skin section to come down a bit. To keep things in plane, they suggest using lumber with sandpaper to straddle the entire structure as shown below. I grabbed a spare 2×4 lying around and used carpet tape to secure the 60 grit sandpaper.

And after a few sessions of sanding and sanding again… The end result is something that looks very much like an airplane for the first time. As you can see here, I’ve also attached the top forward tailcone skin as it is used to match drill to the cabin top.

I then started to match drill the cabin top to the top forward fuselage skin.