After working on insulating the shed and building the hotbox, I got back to the practice layups over the holidays. If you read the first layup post, you know the first try of the 6-ply 10×16″ practice layup was too dry with many white parts. I was hoping that a warm workshop and properly heated …
An exercise that almost everyone that starts working with fiberglass encounters right away is that of building a heated box for epoxy storage. The epoxy should be warm when used, somewhere around 30C or 90F, otherwise its viscosity is higher and it’s more difficult to wet out the fabric. If you don’t store it at …
The latest NC30 update is pretty pedestrian: it got new front brake disks and pads. The old disks were below the service limit and the play in the “floats” was enough that the wheel could move noticeably with the front brake held in. The pads were also hopelessly oily from the leaked fork oil, so …
With the carbs and valves finally done, it was time for a little test ride. (After having the bike for over 3 months, I’ve so far basically only ridden it around the block twice to test the forks after rebuilding them.) After putting the fairings back on, I shot some pictures and went for a …
The first post about the carb overhaul ended with “now I just have to synchronize them”… Well, nothing ever seems easy on this bike. For those of you who don’t know, synchronization is the procedure by which you make sure all cylinders are idling at the same throttle. If you don’t do this, chances are …
After the SportAir workshop, I put in an order for a startup kit of composite materials from Aircraft Spruce. Since we got a discount from the workshop, I thought it would be a good way of getting some momentum on the airplane building. I didn’t order nearly enough for an airplane, but it’s sufficient for …
Along with the carb cleaning, checking the valve clearances on the NC30 going to get done while I had stuff apart. While access is tricky (you have to remove the radiators and pretty much the airbox as well), it was actually easier than on the NC23 because you don’t have to remove the camshafts to …
Since the NC30 wasn’t idling on all cylinders and generally was misfiring at low rpm, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take the carburetors apart and make sure everything was cleaned and adjusted right. This turned out to be a good decision… While the insides were pretty clean, things were pretty garbled. There’s a good …
I’ve been collecting parts to start working on the NC30. The first step was to fix the leaking fork seals. This turned into a bit of a longer project after taking the forks apart and noticing that the slider bushings were in pretty bad shape, too, so I figured I should just replace them while …
The Experimental Aircraft Association has been running these workshops teaching different aircraft building skills around the country for a long time, and when I saw that the Composite workshop was going to be offered in Riverside, I jumped on the opportunity to get some momentum on my airplane building project. (It was apparently a good idea, …
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