The last few months have been focused on completing any prime/paint activities, as the paint booth facilities will not be available to me after October 31
The front wheel fairing needed some AwlGrip filler to even the transition from fore to aft section. The final painted assembly looks very good.
The right photo shows the initial shaping of the leg fairing. A construction laser was then used to locate the nutplate holes through the fiberglass web for accurate drilling.
Then .063 Piano Hinge was attached and a pin fabricated to length. The final configuration is shown on the right. Subsequent steps related to smoothing the rivet lines (namely resin fill, followed by SuperFil, Smooth Prime, spot putty, prime and then paint.)
The steps were powdered coated and painted in previous posts. Here the tread portion was treated with UltraWing Walk anti-slip compound. This material contains heavy duty grit particles and cured to a rock hard surface. This will provide an excellent surface on the installed steps for getting into the airplane.
The steps then served as a reference point for leveling the fuselage and horizontal alignment with the ground to set the appropriate angle on the main gear fairings. Again construction lasers were used for accuracy. The left photo aligns the step reference parallel to the fuselage centerline, while the right ensure vertical alignment to a plumb bob hung from the step.
With references now vertical and horizontally aligned with the fuselage, the fairing back-sweep angle was set to direct point backwards to the step reference point. This should ensure minimized wind resistance during flight.
After setting the proper sweep angle on the leg pieces, the intersection fairings were drilled to the same orientation. Eventually these parts will be secured with nutplates and will constrain the leg fairly in the correct configuration.
Here were two views of the final setups.
After completing the fairing alignments, I decided to complete blending the intersections to the wheel fairings. I had originally thought to do this after the flight testing phase, but moved forward with the repainting due to the paint booth access limitations.