Hal Danby's...

For almost a year I have been building my engine cowling. Yes, a year! But anything to keep the peace. It’s all the fault of my son, John, you see. John is a race engineer with Lotus and is heavily ‘in to’ carbon fibre, and it was his opinion that any self-respecting aircraft constructor should use this wonder material whenever possible. I had had thoughts of happily playing about with sheets of aluminium and rivets, but no, carbon fibre it had to be.

To get the shape, the engine was mounted on a dummy firewall of the same shape, and upended so that the crankshaft was vertical. Plastic film covered the engine and we were now ready. Brown paper shuttering was built around the engine and a two-part foam was poured into the top to cover the engine. One or two leaks from the joint between the paper and the dummy firewall caused the liquid foam to spill onto the floor. Don’t do it. The mess is horrendous.

After an hour or so the foam was hard and easily carved with the bread knife. Over-enthusiasm with the foam meant that large quantities of foam had to be removed before a reasonable shape emerged. There was lots of standing back in a thoughtful pose before the final shape was agreed by all the family to be worthy of a Pietenpol. The remaining task in making the plug was to cover the foam in car body filler, sanding to perfection and applying more coats of two pack car paint than I care to remember. It’s sounds quick and easy but the toil and mess in all these stages was incredible. If only I could have just taken this beautiful, shiny plug and bolted it to the front of the ‘plane.

A three-part mould was constructed from fibreglass, which bolted together. This came out very well and is very solid. Removing the plug from the engine involved more chaos in the workshop, but I was glad to get back to some form of normality.

Rough fibreglass layups were done in the mould to prove them, and this gave me the first chance to look at my design on the completed fuselage. The styling is perhaps a bit modern, but I console myself with the thought that Bernard P. might have done something similar had he been alive at the turn of the millennium and had access to modern materials.

The moulds needed modifying so that a joint-line return could be constructed with recesses for natty catches, etc. As I write, the bottom half is moulded in carbon fibre and fits like a dream. The top will follow shortly. During all of the above, I also constructed two CF engine ducts. This material is truly amazing. It’s incredibly light and fantastically strong.

As I near the end of this three-act drama I think "It wasn’t too bad. There wasn’t that much mess". But it was, and there was!