Hatch latches and canopy mounting

[Bob Kane]

My El Nino has completed it's third season. The canopy
is held in with 2 dowels in the front and a 4-40 screw
in the back. Originally the front dowels were carbon
rods into glass/balsa, and they wore rather quickly. I
replaced the carbon tubes with a birch dowel, opend up
the holes and glued some 6-32 WellNuts (cut down to
roughly 1/4" in length) into the hole. The rubber
WellNuts eliminated wear and help dampen noise. The
chin cowl on this plane is held in place with 4-40
steel pins in the front and Hatch Latches in the rear,
both going into plywood. I find both the front holes
and the holes for the hatch latches wear due to
vibration.

I have been so impressed with the wear-free
performance of the dowels in the WellNuts, I am
mounting both the chin cowl and canopy of my new
Temptation using this method. The next K-Factor will
have some pictures of the chin cowl mounting system,
the one after that will have pictures of the canopy
mount.

If you are not familiar with WellNuts, they are kind
of a rubber version of an expanding drywall fastener.
I remove the part with the machine nut molded in to
save some weight since it is not used. 

=====
Bob Kane
getterflash at yahoo.com


		
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