Lower cowl marked
I got the aft edge of the top cowl trimmed good enough for now. I took the plunge and drilled the attach holes in the top cowl at the firewall through the camloc attach strip for some clecos to hold it in place. Next up I pulled out the bottom cowl. I had already cut the nose gear slot in the bottom in a previous session. I scratched my head for just a couple of minutes to figure out what the next step was going to be. I’m making this whole “art project” up as I go.
I slid the bottom into place and held the back up with a nylon hold-down strap and bungee cord and was able to get one cleco in each side up front. More head scratching. Note that at this point, I have not trimmed the sides of the top or the bottom cowl halves except for up by the air inlets. I’m just letting the bottom sides overlap the top. I marked for rough cuts of the bottom at the firewall and some reference lines of where the sides to the top and bottom overlap. From these reference lines on the top, I’m going to make the final side cuts on the top half. Then I’ll use the top to mark the bottom for the matching side trim line. Yep, that is my plan. So far so good. This cowl trimming is a big fat mess, especially when power tools are involved.
