May 16

Sweet!!!

The CriticalPower streamliner fairing shells came back from the painters today and they look FANTASTIC! Bob Douglas did a bang-up job staying up until 2:00 am last night just to finish shooting the final clear coat. He spent quite a bit of time with high build epoxy primer sanding and spraying and sanding and spraying to get it very smooth.

It still needs to be wet sanded and polished to remove the orange peel texture of the clear coat paint.

Ben and I spent the day doing the many little things needed to finish off the assembly. Like adding the landing gear door hatch, sanding and painting the rear wheel fairing (not shown), adjusting the canopy bubble, etc, etc – photos and details of all that work below.

Here are a bunch more photos of CriticalPower. Note that the new logo that my bro is making for me isn’t on yet + the shells haven’t been fitted together properly with tape and the rear wheel fairing is not yet on, and etc. I’ll get some proper photos taken when we get it completely finished.

Click on the pictures to enlarge:

Here are some other things we got done:

	1. Small blobs of Shapelock worked great to cover over sharp plastic tie strap ends and bolts.
	2. We made the landing gear door by thermoforming a piece of Sintra plastic. The Sintra has a rough texture, so I covered it with Bondo and sanded. The Bondo bonds to the Sintra very well and adds some harness to the soft Sintra surface.
	3. I contact cemented a strip of soft rubber to the perimeter of the landing gear door hatch and then ran a bead of silicone to smoothen out edge.
	4. After some paint and wet sanding, the hatch cover is smooth and glossy like the shells. The rubber seal prevents air from leaking into the streamliner.
	5. More Shapelock coolness – a handy external battery holder for the ChatterBox two-way radio. My plan was to wire the radio into the large 12 volt Lithium Polymer battery I am using to power the iPod, but when the two devices shape the same power source, I get this VERY annoying interference noise through the headphones. I tried a ground loop filter and it stripped out 30% of the volume which was unacceptable. The only solution was to isolate the power sources which meant using the ChatterBox’s own rechargable NiCad battery. The problem with that, is it only lasts for 8 hours of use. I have 5 replacement batteries, but you need to remove the back cover on the radio to replace the battery. So, I extended the power wires through the back of the radio case and made a ShapeLock holder for the battery. I can now swap batteries from my seat in the streamliner during pit stops.
	6. Ben bondo’ed and sanded down the rear wheel fairing
	7. Rear wheel fairing primed and ready for paint
	8. We contact cemented a piece of neoprene to the front wheel cut-out on the inside of both fairing shells
	9. Now I will cut a slot for the tire to spin freely while pointed straight ahead. When turning, the tire will push into the neoprene.
	10. I bonded a piece of terry cloth towel to the inside of both fairing shells where my arms, shoulders and elbow rub.

Today, we wet sand the fairing shells, apply the Logistiseal sealant and mount the rear wheel fairing. More photos soon!!

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