Cozy

Chapter 15 - The Firewall

The SS Firewall

This is where I put in the BLOOD of the Blood Sweat and Tears! Blood! More Blood! AAAAHHHHHH!!! ;-)

The Plan

In this chapter we will manufacture the Firewall and BLOOD;-) Have I mentioned I lost a lot of blood in this chapter. OK, Enough of a warning. The Fiberfax installation and Stainless Steel firewall are needed to cover the centersection spar and rest of the plane from the heat of the engine compartment.

Fiberfax

The fiberfax is the insulation for the rest of the plane. When the beautiful E-racer of Jack Morrison burned some learnings were made. The Fiberfax held up much better where it was held in place by red RTV. So I glued mine on with red RTV over the entire surface of the spar and plywood firewall. It took 4 tubes!

Stainless Steel Firewall

First, I made a paper mock up of the firewall. Then I made another! I punched in all the blind screws and holes for the controls and wiring. When I was happy with the mock up I traced it onto a sheet of the steel. I used a really good pair of hand snips, and about 2 gallons of elbow, wrist and hand grease to cut it out. Man did I get tired. Then, I drilled out the holes and expanded them to the proper sizes. But when it was cut outy, it had burrs from the snips. I filed both sides of the steel to smooth of the shards. Do you know the that thin stainless is just like a knife when you sharpen both sides? You don't even feel it, but there is that red stuff all over. Some minor tweeking of the edges was needed to make it fit correctly. I guess my paper mock up wasn't close enough!

Brackets

This is the where you finally get to attach the brackets, you jumped a head to make! You should be good at this stuff by now! I put off the gascolator install til the sump tank is done.

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