Now that the upper forward fuselage assembly is riveted on, I can go ahead with the firewall insulation, using the Titanium foil and 1/8″ Fiberfrax I had previously prepared.
In order to prevent the Titanium from puckering, I used 1/8″ stainless steel spacers (available from McMaster Carr) for all #8, #10, 1/4″ and 5/16″ holes, and stainless steel washers for larger sizes. I used RTV to hold the spacers “in place”, a few swizzles of Fire Barrier 2000+ to hold the Fiberfrax in place, and then put on the Titanium. I used machine screws to retain the Titanium in place, these will later be replaced by whatever their respective position calls for. There’s a few pulled rivets across the bottom, and for most of the pass-thru’s I had left one rivet position open so that retaining rivets can be used here as well. The rivets I used are stainless steel, and have a closed end cap, so they should seal up quite well.
I installed the A/C pass-throughs and steel AN fittings for the duplex fuel system, and riveted on the oil cooler mount. I previously made up a Titanium insert for the center recess. I subtracted 1/8″ all around from the recess dimensions, and made the insert accordingly. The thing’s a work of art, but it turns out I should have allowed more wiggle room so I’m going to toss it and make up another one.
I went on a bit of a campaign mounting various items on the firewall, to get them off the shelf and out of the way. Finally, the engine mount went on and that’s another large item no longer on the floor.
I moved the paint booth out and tossed it in the farm shed. I don’t really have much use for it in the coming months, and moving it out clears up a lot of room in the workshop. At the very least it needs re-lining, it’s more like a dark room these days. It might get torn down, I think its usefulness is over after four years of dedicated service – an entire slow-build RV-10 got primed in that little paint booth!
