I'm Back!

SoCalPlaneDoc

SoCalPlaneDoc

New member
Had to take a year off - got canned after 32 years with the same company by a 30 year old newbie PhD manager so he could replace me with 2 of his new-grad buddies and save money... found out recently they closed the whole department due to non-performance.. Karma can be brutal :)
Thought a couple of times I was going to have to sell the Cruisemaster but made it through the darkness.. Back working again.. 4 more years till retirement...

Hello again everyone.. soon as the annual is done I'm back to committing aviation.

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Rob58 said:
Hi Bill! Great to see you back online. How did the radio upgrade project turn out?
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Well I didn't get to redo the panel's fiberglass and all, but got the radio stack in along with the HSI. Decided to have Garmin's new ADS-B transponder installed ... Fully redundant IFR now...
Just dont have the time right now to do all the cosmetics..

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Welcome back! Curious what you were planning with the fiberglass panel... I'd love to build a replacement panel for my -3. A past owner did a horrible hack job and then did an overlay to make it structurally sound again. It works, but it's not pretty.
 
bbarrett said:
Welcome back! Curious what you were planning with the fiberglass panel... I'd love to build a replacement panel for my -3. A past owner did a horrible hack job and then did an overlay to make it structurally sound again. It works, but it's not pretty.
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Thanks...
I was planning on doing kind of the same thing.. that is, a sheet metal overlay for the raised area above the engine trio, engine cluster, glove box, etc... trim away the old fiberglass leaving strategic tabs for attachments. Then once everything was installed, build another overlay like Pfluegers used to make - basically a layer of acrylic with LEDs strategically located for instrument lighting, covered with a wood veneer.
Funny how life gets in the way though... I built a CNC router so I could make the three layers and have everything line up. Made some signs and door plaques with it. A door company in my area saw the plaques and commissioned me to build an entire door from Ebony, carved to look like the Han Solo Carbonite slab from Star Wars, which meant I needed to build a much bigger router. All that set me back a year on the panel project.
Then my elderly parents both began to sink - that set back the project again... Then losing my job due to blantant ignorance on the part of some enabled gen-X new hires, and the resultant legal swordfight... I came out rosey on that but the distraction again stopped progress. About that time the Narcos that were in the plane finally had enough and I was grounded.
I guess something was telling me I had too many projects, time to discharge some of them. I took the Garmin stack I had collected to a good friend with a instrument business and paid him to do the install. Not the final result I had envisioned but heck, now it's done and as soon as I get the annual done I'll be back in the air. It didn't come out all that bad, I think my plane had less panel hacking than most, but it sure is suffering from the haphazard layout required by 50's avionics tech.

Now I'm looking for a new owner for my Model A project, and a kid that would like to tinker with a Harley :)
 
Mine was just an overlay on the left side, to deal with how much material they removed to build a mostly standard six pack. It wasn't a great overlay and the right side could use some cleanup as well. I like your idea of keeping the bottom of the panel and building a new, metal main panel. I love the look of the bottom part of the -3 panel and would hate to lose that. I had thought about trying to build a new panel from scratch, but building a mold and trying to get the metal insert in the main panel seemed like a challenge. I also haven't found anyone in the area who will cut fiberglass on a cnc/waterjet, but there's no shortage of places that can deal with a metal panel.
 
Totally agree with Brian that the lower panel looks good and adds some distinctive character to the -3 interior. Unfortunately my lower panel was hacked on the right side and I lost the glove box to a now obsolete piece of avionics. As I work towards a complete makeover of the panel the goal is to find the sweet spot - a better layout without entirely losing the look and feel of the original design. As for the fiberglass lower panel, any idea what color they were painted from the factory?
 
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