We aligned the leg fairings and started match-drilling the intersection fairings:
Aligning the gear leg fairing with a laser and plumb bob
Intersection fairing around aligned gear leg fairing
Both intersection fairings match-drilled around aligned gear leg fairing
At this point, it became clear how bad the Vans molds really are - the top ones don't even sit flush when clecoed at two points, and I was still going to have to add more fiberglass layers and finish them - so I stopped and bought the RVBits ones :) those weren't perfect, but were a bit better and were definitely well finished:
Match-drilled RVBits intersection fairing
Match-drilled and enclosed intersection fairing
To bond the bottom intersection fairings to the wheel fairings, we sanded the wheel fairings underneath it, then used resin and flox:
Sanding intersection fairing bonding area
Sanded intersection fairing bonding area
Bonded intersection fairing
Aft wheel and split intersection fairing after bonding
Forward wheel and split intersection fairing after bonding
We then continued with the nose wheel fairing, by filling the gaps around the screws, which was again more challenging than it looks due to the enclosed space:
Filling gaps inside the nose gear fairing
The above obviously gave poor results, but that was then easy to fix on the bench, now that we had a minimal barrier to tighten the screws against:
Nose gear fairing with gaps partially filled
Filling remaining nose gear fairing gaps
Nose gear fairing brackets with re-filled gaps
I also countersunk the tug guards for riveting:
Tug guards with countersunk holes
Next is the nose gear leg fairing and finishing of the nose wheel fairing and intersection fairings.
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