Sun Jun 1, 2008 

Yes I am still alive!

I've been working slowly on the hovercraft and have adopted a "it gets finished whenever"  attitude.

I have done a fair amount of undocumented work over the last few months.

The pink foam outgases and causes bubbles under the fiberglass.  This has happened all over my rudders and on the front of the craft.  I usually poke many holes in the bubble and use crazy glue to hold the bubbles down. This worked great on the rudders but not so good on the nose.  I ended up cutting the bubbles out and re-glassing the front of the nose.  A year later it had bubbled again.  Whatever... I am filling with epoxy and micro-balloons and getting out the bubbles as best I can.  I suspect I will see more of them over time after the craft is painted.

I have extended the lift duct splitters up to a plain that will be about 1/8" under the lift fan.  My splitters were to plan but were too low in the duct.  They were about 10" too low.  The plans are very vague on this.  My splitters are about 19" wide with a 4" gap from the duct wall at the farthest point away.  It would have worked the way I had it but having the splitters close to the fan will give me better skirt pressure at lower rpm's.  Thanks to Dave S. and Ken R. for the splitter advice.  Dave thinks its funny I'm still working on this thing...we started ours at a similar time...he finished his probably 6 or so years ago!  I've been side tracked through the years with other projects.  I will see this one through to the end eventually.

I have filled and sanded most of the imperfections on the craft.  It picked up a fair amount of dings over the years.  I just need to do a final sand and I'll be ready for paint.

I picked a two part epoxy paint called tuff paint.  Basically you mix it in equal parts and then let it site for about 30 minutes.  You can thin it with a solvent to spray it.  I am planning on spraying most of the craft but I expect I'll be brushing some of the hard to reach areas. 

I'll finish sanding and get the craft prepped for paint this week.  So maybe next weekend I'll start the paint.  Once I get one good coat of white on it I'll assemble the craft and get it hovering!

Sat Jul 5, 2008  

Started painting today...yuck...wish I could outsource this job.

I didn't thin the paint enough (I think) to properly spray.   Got the paint on slowly with a small circle pattern.  When I set the gun to spray a larger oval it would not spay any paint.  It seemed to work when I tried water earlier in the day.  I don't have any experience spray painting.  I am using two part epoxy paint. 

I painted the props and the rudders, trim wing and bottom rudder bar. 

Mon Jul 7, 2008  

Mon Jul 7, 2008

Cont... 

Paint - When you think you have more than enough... you don't.  I made a special trip to buy more paint today.  I need to go tomorrow and buy even more.  Probably will have spent about $350-$400 on paint.  My wife hates me right now as the stink has managed to somehow find its way into the house despite me sealing the man door with tape.  She should come out to the garage and take a whiff out here. 

The flash revealed some spots I completely missed on the thrust duct.  I'll get them tomorrow.  I am going to shoot another complete coat tomorrow and then probably a touch up coat the following day.  Then I don't want to see a paint gun for a while.

Tue Jul 8, 2008  

Tue Jul 8, 2008

Cont...

More second coat shots...

Wed Jul 9, 2008

Wed Jul 9, 2008

Cont...

Thu Jul 10, 2008

Thu Jul 10, 2008

Cont...

Fri Jul 11, 2008

Sat Jul 12, 2008

I painted the thrust prop idler tensioners with two coats of Tremclad black automotive paint.  I also painted the ends of the thrust prop idlers.  These are the angle iron I welded on to the end nuts and secured with rolled pins.

I started fitting the thrust prop and discovered that the single 22 gauge shims under each pillow clock bearing weren't high enough.  I made 4 more shims so I can put 3 22 gauge shims under each pillow block bearing.  I used sheet metal for the shims and painted them with the black tremclad to inhibit future rusting.

Sun Jul 13, 2008

Today I finished mounting the thrust prop to the stand.  3 x 22guage shims worked great under each pillow block bearing.

I also changed the oil on the Kohler Command Pro 25

And I charged the battery.