Joining doors and drilling Aerosport handle holes

We finally joined all the door shells, which was actually pretty easy:

Adding resin to the Parabeam fiber between the door shells

Door shells clamped into place to give their final shape

There were a few mistakes on the first door - for one, I forgot to cover the pin block holes with some tape, so a lot of resin leaked out of them and had to be cleaned up:

Resin that oozed out of the pin block holes

Pin block holes after sanding out the excess resin

Pin block holes on left door, covered with tape this time

Also, the reinforcement blocks weren't really attached to the outer shell, so we used a chip chaser to push resin into that small gap, and that actually turned out well (minus having to carefully clean the chip chaser with acetone afterwards, of course).

Reinforcement blocks not attached to the outer shell

Reinforcement blocks after adding resin and sanding

I also started turning the door into swiss cheese by drilling the holes for the Aerosport low-profile handle, and making sure the parts fit properly:

Holes match-drilled for installing the Aerosport low-profile handle

Test-fitting the exterior Aerosport parts

Test-fitting the interior Aerosport parts

Since on the first door it was clear that the thinner layer of resin hadn't been enough to attach that latch recess to the outer shell, on the second door we added a thicker layer with cab-o-sil (just like on the edges of the door). I then filled the gaps in the first door with resin using a curved-tip syringe, which made a decent mess, but one that was easy to clean up:

Gap between the latch recess and the outer shell

Puddle of resin after filling the gaps between shells


Finally, I countersunk the flush screw holes:


Next will be the long task of trimming the door edges until they fit perfectly.

Time lapse:


Total cabin door rivets: 32
Total cabin door time: 60.1h

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