Stjohn's RV-7

5 hours.
Nav lights, strobes, and wingtip lenses are all done. Oh, and by the way, add fiberglass to the list of things I detest working with. Plexiglass as well. Cutting the wingtip lenses was a ratbastard, but the Dremel fiberglass/plastic shaping and cutting wheel works really well. It’s just that the position I had to use it in was the position required to shoot hot crumbs of molten plexiglass from the cut into my hair, face, and occasionally bounce it up under my safety glasses, which is molto uncool. I had to switch to full-on goggles. Whatever, here are some pics.
This is the final-cut lens taped to the wingtip so I can drill the mounting holes in the corner.

Here’s the lens, after the platenuts are installed. I”m using the countersunk washers I got when I thought I needed to use a bunch of them for something, but only two are necessary. For now.

Remember a while back I said I was clecoing things into place as a storage option? Here’s the panel and associated ribs, clecoed in to get them out of the way and make me feel good.

The local hardware store provided me with some high-temp silver paint, so I did the cutouts with it. Van’s packing paper makes an excellent mask. These are going to look badass when the rest of the tips are matte black.

The right wingtip, with LED nav light, landing light, strobe and metal heatshield/reflector installed.

Both tips, ready for attachment to the wings.

Here’s both tips with all the equipment in them and the lenses on.

1 hour.
Didn’t have a lot of time to build today.. Actually I did, so it’s more my fault. The landscapers came today and moved all the compost and bark into place for our front yard. Supervising them took until noon, but they did a fine job. Then it was lunch time. It rained all day and every place I went for lunch was either too crowded or not open, so I just gave up, got Subway, and came home. Then I surfed the internet and gawked at engines for a while, then finally got going on the left wingtip. I cut the strobe heatshield/reflector plates for the outboard facing surface on the wingtips, which was a royal pain. The flycutter can’t do a 1″ diameter cut, and I don’t have a 1″ hole saw or punch. I do have a 1″ wood bit, which didn’t work at all. I finally made a 1/2″ hole and expanded it with a spare rotary burr chucked into the drill press. Time-consuming, but effective. I managed to make a bit of a mess, so I think a 1″ unibit is on the list for acquisition because only Cthulhu knows how many 1″ holes I’m going to have to drill around this airframe. On the plus side, I cut the plexiglass lens bubble in half, and this photo shows it taped into position with the cutout edges marked. The strobe bulb is also in, but I’ve got the black protective foam around it.

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Looks like everything I need to finish the wings has shown up. My pitot/AOA plumbing kit is here from SafeAir1, the 60 watt 4 way strobe kit is here from Strobeguy, my antenna and power wire is here from spruce, along with the hardware I need to finish the wingtips. So here’s another checklist for finishing (making ready for long term storage) the wings:
Fab up strobe reflector/mount plates for cutouts in L/R wingtips
Temp-install CreativAir nav/landing light combo in R wingtip (L is done)
Glass in Archer nav antenna in L wingtip
Run wires for strobes, nav light, landing light and Antenna in L wingtip
Run wires for strobe, nav light and landing light in R wingtip
Run pitot and AOA lines through L wing ribs
Bend/cut Pitot/AOA probe tubing to fit.
Drill pitot mast and probe for fastening probe to mast.
Cleco wing skins back on
finish trimming wings near elevator
Install nutplates for wingtip attach
Install wingtip ribs
cut wingtip lenses, install nutplates for wingtip lens attach
Paint wingtips flat black, paint cutouts silver.
install lenses, cover with protective substance (van’s wrapping paper should do.
It’s supposed to rain all weekend, so painting is probably out, but I can do the rest of it if I can devote a large block of time to it.