Comet
Sailplane Project
Today I built the first prototype cowl retention
bracket as shown below.
In this close up, you can see that the bracket is
made from .064" X 1/4" brass strap with a steel 4-40 nut soldered to the
rear face of the bracket.
However, this prototype has two problems with it.
(1) the top of engine's mounting lugs are sloped causing the bracket to be
canted, which only a cosmetic issue. (2) The real problem is that the
bracket must go in the bottom of the engine's mounting lug between the
bottom face of the mounting lug and the top face of the motor mount. In this
way, I can mount the bracket on the jig fixture allowing me to build the
cowls interface attachments. And oh by the way, this eliminates the cant in
the bracket! :O)
The width of the machined bottom face of the
engine's mounting lug is 3/8", but the
bracket's brass strap is only 1/4" wide. I found that the .064" brass strap
only comes in 1/4" and 1/2" with no 3/8" width. So I bought the 1/2" wide
brass strap and my friend Jerry Burk is going to cut the width down to 3/8"
on his band saw this evening. Tomorrow I will fabricate the second prototype
cowl retention bracket..................Tandy