This week I took care of a few minor items, including a small gouge on the prop blade root. I had put this tiny gouge in the blade root when fitting the spinner. It wasn't completely clear whether the gouge actually went into the aluminum, or was only in the paint, but I could risk ignoring it. The prop blade root is under a lot of stress, and the imbalance resulting from a blade failure would almost certainly cause the engine mount to fail, with the resulting aft CG leading to a fatal crash. I used very, very fine sand paper to blend out the gouge over a long distance, then used an Alodine 1132 pen to put an anti-corrosion coating on the aluminum. Today I sprayed the area with Tempo epoxy prop blade paint. The resulting repair is pretty much undetectable.

This week I also did most of the work to fabricate a doubler for the belly mounted COM antenna. Although these antennae typically require an internal doubler to ensure no cracks develop in the skin, for some stupid reason I forgot to install one. I had to remove the antenna, drill out the platenuts, and fabricate an 0.032" doubler. Sometime this week I need to get Terry to help me dimple the holes in the fuselage where the doubler will mount, then we can rivet it in place.

Today I pulled off the vinyl tape around the windscreen fairing and took a closer look at the seam filler around the edges. I'm not completely satisfied with it, but it looks better than I thought. I'll do a bit of touch up to fill in a few small low spots to smooth it out a bit.