On Wednesday I spent a couple more hours cleaning up and treating corrosion on the windscreen frame in preperation for paint. I'm still hoping to get some original quarter light glazing, though it's likely the main screens will have to be acrylic replacements for now.
I painted up the two new/repro lasercut panels and continued work on the various parts and panels from Newark and Norfolk. I'm trying to do the minimum 'restoration' so things stay as original as possible but I want them to look presentable and like they're from the same aircraft, which is a challenge. I've made new labels for a couple of panels which are very close to the originals I removed during clean up. Where the panels have original 'engraved' captions I'm masking those as best I can. I've managed to get the fuel pump warning light from one of the side consoles working by replacing the dead bulb with a new LED unit which works well, it's nice to know that drop in LED replacements are available for these. Of course all the wiring will be brand new for the sim implementation and it'll soon be time to start planning that out.
I've also been working on some reproduction instruments, initially I thought mechanical instruments would be too much work but after spending a bit of time tinkering with some files I found online I've made a good start on my own design. I thought I'd start simple with the single needle Air Speed Indicator. At least, I thought it would be simple until I realised I'd have to somehow gear the output from a cheap RC servo (max 180 degrees movement) to the 630+ degree sweep of the Hunter's ASI! Cue a crash refresher course on gear ratios and more Fusion 360 tutorials but I think I've got the gearing worked out. (please ignore the crude paper dial face, it's just for testing and calibration!)
