Well, I couldn't think of a better title for this post. I mixed up some epoxy and flox and glued the horizontal splice plates and rear hinges to the lower cowl:
What I should have done next was wait half an hour, then come back and remove the half-dried epoxy mess from the inside surfaces of the metal with a solvent rag. But I was tired so I went to bed instead. That meant I had to come back the next day with a grinder and tediously grind off all the dried epoxy. This also took some of the alclad off the aluminum, but that's okay since it will all be painted in the end.
Countersunk the outside and squeezed all the rivets… pretty standard stuff:
Here you can see how the epoxy grabs on to the holes drilled in the aluminum. Be careful to keep epoxy out of the hinge material. I used a squared-off piece of popsicle stick to dig the glue out from between the hinge segments, and I used a piece of steel rod coated in Boelube to keep it out of the hinge eyes.
Back on the airplane. Now the only clecoes in the fiberglass cowl are in places where there will eventually be some kind of removable fastener – either a camloc or a screw.
From the side, you can see that I have some work to do to even up the face of the cowl behind the spinner. I'll probably save that until later, since it won't affect what I'm planning to work on next.
