With the baggage floors riveted on, I moved to the next section, riveted the door hinge frame, and attached the door (using the split pin mod that others have also used):
Baggage door installed in place
Door attach pin, split in the middle and folded into the door
Baggage door strike plate
Door seal applied around the door borders
The only thing left on this section is to attach the left baggage cover, which I'll do later along with the section 35 panels.
I riveted the door frames and bracket to the skin, which required supporting it properly, but gave good results:
Frames and bracket clecoed to the skin
Frames and skin supported for riveting
Skin riveted to frames and bracket
Finding the right lock was a small quest - Van's only sells one along with an ignition switch, which I don't need, and I wanted something as flush as possible. I initially tried to find KABA-style cam locks, but finding one with the right size (5/8"-3/4" diameter, 5/8" length) proved to be just impossible. I ended up getting a few different ones from Amazon and mixing their parts - I used the cylinder from this one, the cam (bar) from this one, and the locking washer from this one (after flattening its "claws" and then introducing a slight curvature):
Mix of cam lock parts
Curved washer
Cam lock aseembled in door
With this in place, I riveted the inside close-out panel:
Door, fully riveted with close-out panel
Next is actually attaching the door, after the floors are riveted in.
Time lapse:
Total baggage door rivets: 114 Total baggage door time: 12.1h
After the primer batch, I decided to paint the primed interior parts that would be visible:
Painted baggage door, baggage area and rear seat parts
Painted baggage door and tailcone attachment parts
Painted floors and rear seat backs
Painted cover plates
There are aparts already attached to the fuselage that may also need painting, plus most section 35 parts are not finished/ready for paint yet, but I'll do those later.
Overall, painting with the spray can was just sooo much easier than the HVLP, and I was pretty happy with the results.
Time lapse:
Total paint time: 1.5h
(but I'll count the total time in each section for the parts, proportionally)
We primed quite a few parts from various fuselage sections (and even some from the empennage attachment, and for rebuilding part of the vertical stabilizer):
Various fuselage parts after scrubbing with Prekote
Primed fuselage parts on the floor (ran out of space elsewhere)
Primed fuselage parts on the workbench
Primed fuselage parts on top of the fuselage
This unblocks a ton of work, so expect many more posts in the near future.
Time lapse:
Total time: 6.5h (but I'll count it towards each section instead)
I've been working on the baggage door slowly, whenever there's nothing else to work on.
This section is mostly straight forward - cleco everything together and final-drill:
Main door parts clecoed together and final-drilled
then the tricky part, which is making the hinge and drilling it on both sides such that the door is actually flush to the rest of the skin:
Marking the hinge holes for the door side
Marked hinge for drilling
I also used the common deviation from plans that involves cutting half the hinge eyes so that pins can be inserted from the center, allowing the whole hinge to be closer to flush with the skins:
Door hinge with 3 half eyes removed for pin insertion
Making the door hinge almost flush with the skin
Finally, the recommended method to drill the other half of the hinge to the fuselage involves modifying clecos so they fit inbetween the halves:
Specially modified clecos for the door hinge
then centering the door and match-drilling from the inside:
Door centered in place and held by tape
which, of course, went very wrong:
Accidental double hole when drilling the fuselage side of the door hinge :/
so I did the whole hinge over from the start, just reusing the door side holes and match-drilling the door to the hinge rather than the other way around. This time I was a lot more patient and careful in drilling the hinge frame into the hinge, so it went fine, and I countersunk the hinge:
Match-drilled and countersunk door hinge
The next steps are just deburring, primer and riveting.
I was also considering adding a baggage door sensor (microswitch or similar), but given how hard that'll be, it's probably not worth it.
