Sometimes the pursuit seems to take all of my attention away from forward progress, but I like to think that it contributes to the end result, and certainly keeps me mentally involved, exercising all of “those little gray cells” (Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot reference… have always been a fan of her work). But as we have seen before, sometimes it seems that all of the long tedious effort comes together in a moment and all becomes right with the world.
Today was kind of like that for the street side door. No, it is not done, but we have overcome a hurdle and I am very pleased with the outcome. Also, it has given me confidence that the curb side door will follow suit neatly, having overcome the learning curve (there is always a learning curve).
But let’s back up a little first. I have hemmed and hawed about using high build primer vs. 410 thickened epoxy. Well that little bit of leftover epoxy I thickened and spread along the curb side roof lap looks pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. Maybe not something picture worthy, and maybe you can’t see much difference w/o looking back at the previous pics, but to me it is very reassuring. This looking forward from the galley. (The close up near field view makes the faired area look much wider than the 6 or so inches that it is.) I'll come back to this another time, wash amine, sand and scuff as needed.
From the curb side looking across the hinge spar. Because of the way the flat bottomed spar rolled forward a tad when screwed to the slightly rounded wall profile, this area has had a bit of a dip, and the way I lapped the glass for the construction sequence introduced some more variation, but it has never looked better.
Okay, let’s get back to that street side door. Today I trimmed away the excess glass on the outside edge and a few strings using the serrated steak knife; washed amine; and used the various sanding blocks to knock everything back fair again. This included running the long flat board across the tops of the hinge pads. I didn’t go crazy, just taking the pads to about 80/ct fair; I didn’t want to go too far before checking the door fit with the opening again. Here’s one of the FG shim pads after initial clean up.
The drips on the rosin paper didn’t seem to stick it to the finished face, at least not that I could tell without removing it, so that was a bit of a relief.
With all of the extra epoxy that I had used, just a bit of sanding resulted in a fairly smooth surface, but not so much as to avoid the need for fairing compound altogether. You know… if I decide to become obsessive and go for a really slick finish in the door jambs.
I jest. Actually I’m just paying attention to the process to help me decide what to do for the rest of the body. I’m constantly learning.
Right, time to see how we did with the hinge pads. Back to the hinge jig to reestablish those screw holes; and now that the FG is reinforcing the edge I can drill the other pair of holes, too.
Screws in.
So we are getting there. Before adding the hinge pads the door would start to spring against the fixed hinge leafs when the latch side was about 3/8 inch (IIRC) ajar. I could close it all the way, but this put some stress on the door. Now it got to within 1/8 inch from flush to the wall with very little stress to get it flush (as seen here with my left hand just out of view holding it shut); still not closing freely.
The gaps look great now. Just a little tighter around the radius block, but very even from side to side and across the top. (I think the drip edge to come later will be enough of a distraction that I am not going to do anything more about the corners.)
Here you can see the hinge leaf mated to the FG pad a little better. If you look very closely you can see how the FG pad has a slight chamfer built up were the epoxy and layers of glass tape built up. This is above the top leaf, but the effect was the same underneath, and on the other pad.
Here I have taken the serrated steak knife, utility knife and actually used a wood chisel to trim the pads flush to the edge of the hinge leaf plate, removing anything that could potentially hit the top edge of the opposing hinge leaf.
Huzzah! Now the door swings freely all the way thru past flush until it stops against the seal flange. Tadah!
I consider this to be a mini milestone, and was so pleased that I had to open and close the door several times marveling at my accomplishment. All of the attention to detail seemed worth it in that moment of pleasure.
Let’s take a moment to savor the feeling.
Okay, the fact that I had just proven that I could accurately calculate the stack up of the glass tape thickness in a layup (close enough) gave me confidence to tackle the curb side door stepped shim fix.
From what I learned on the street side door, I figured since I wasn’t going to try and wrap all the way around the curb side door in one go, and since my “parking stall” clamp had sort of gotten in the way; I may as well secure it better to the bench so that I could concentrate better on the more complex layup along the hinge side. That would give me room around both radius corners to wrap the perimeter tape onto the top and bottom. It also held the door more securely so that I wouldn’t have to muzzy it with my slightly gooey gloves and seemed to make it easier to brush on the neat epoxy with a lot less dripping off onto the sides. I used three blocks all the same length and clamps to space the door away from the edge of the bench.
After the experience with the roof where the edge of the shorter bottom layer poked up the top layer, I decided to do the longer perimeter piece first, and then work my way up thru the shorter and shorter stepped shim pieces. I made sharpie lines across the edge of the door representing the starting edge of each strip of tape for the taper shim, as well as a contrasting red colored line at the centerline of the door side and another across the first long piece of tape (where I could see them both more easily than if they were on the ends of the door) to help me place the strips accurately.
Here’s the whole shooting match after wetting it out layer by layer and adding the same compliment of hinge pad layers as used on the street door. Since sanding the inner edge of the street side door went fine, just scuffing the masking tape a bit, I didn’t worry so much about aligning everything to that edge, and just sort of centered it all from inside out. You can see how the first long piece wraps all the way around both corner blocks, then the first of the shim plies starts just below the lower hinge pad (on the left in this view).
I had rolled these strips around a cardboard tube and placed that in a plastic grocery bag for safe keeping until ready to use. Unfortunately they were only loosely wrapped, and perhaps the bag bunched up some, so when I unrolled the strips to use them, several had kinks or slightly creased ripples across them in various locations. That took a bit of persistence while laying up and tending to afterward to keep them pushed down until things started to grip a little better.
In this shot of one of the pads just after wetting, you can also see a bubble popping that I went back at with the chip brush afterward.
In the above pic the cloudy looking area to the left of the pad is one of those creases that would eventually tuck down; while the one to the right of the pad is the edge of one of the staggered strips where a loose thread has bunched up. The later was able to be tucked down some with the chip brush; any remainder will be sanded out after the cure. Only two plies here to the left of the pad, and three to the right.
Compare that to nine plies at the top end of the door; not quite as transparent. Still pretty wet/rich, but since there didn’t seem to be much benefit to over wetting on the street side, I backed off a bit.
At this angle you can see the steps in the glass layers intended to square up the door that little bit needed to set the door gap right, and how the extra time spent tending the layup after the initial wet out seemed to help things settle down. Let’s hope it all stayed after I did walk away.
From here I will clean up this layup, fit the hinges and check to see how we are doing with fit before going back after the rest of the perimeter glass on both doors.
It’s getting there.
