Find out what weight fabric was used, and be careful with your punch testing. Certificated fabric may punch test different than un-certificated.
These aircraft are not made for super-high speeds, although I've had mine to 90 or so in a shallow dive.

The house-paint and fabric may be just fine. I've got 2001 model old Dacron 1.7 on mine with house-paint and I trust it. However the paint is much thicker than I'd like and adds weight.

Okay, sounds good to me.  Do you or anyone else know a safe paint stripper to use with this kind of fabric, for when I install inspection rings?

Quoted from ITman496

Okay, sounds good to me.  Do you or anyone else know a safe paint stripper to use with this kind of fabric, for when I install inspection rings?

Did you find out what application system he used to secure the fabric? If he used Polyfiber or Ceconite then MEK would be ok to remove the old paint, it will not hame the fabric,but will unstick the cement! i would only clean the area about an inch past the radius of the hole and put the inspection holes on the bottom only. i would not try and remove all the old paint because you will unstick the fabric if using MEK. Just wet sand, very lightly, the old paint to promote adhesion. i'm not sure if you like that color or not, but since you will have to paint the wing where the inspection holes are, now would be the perfect chance to change the color or paint scheme. I'm sure the old paint is fine, as long as there are no obvious defects.

If he used a water based adhesive like Stewart systems, then you would need to find out what is best to use for that. I'm not familiar with that system, but a lot of homebuilders use it with latex paint with great success. Stewart Systems has videos on YouTube.

But whichever system he used, you should use the same too! And please watch some videos and do your research on these systems before asking a lot of questions. Don't take that the wrong way, We are here to help, but you will gain a lot more knowledge if you do your own research, rather then taking someones word.

The EAA also has a great video on house hold latex paints. I hope you have access to this link. if not you need to join the EAA. You can even search for local EAA chapters on their website.  
https://video.eaa.org/detail/v.....aircraft&q=latex

Best Regards,
Scott

Thank you Scott, I do apologize for my massive list of questions, I won't take that the wrong way =)  This is a crazy new world I've found myself in and once I get a foundation I think I'll be able to do a lot more research on my own, just have to learn what all the words are, how to even know what question to google to find what I want! But I'm well on my way to that now that I've joined the forum.

In the meantime, some progress:  I got bored, so I figured I'd start designing my avionics display.  I don't have much progress on that front, but I do have the previous project that I am cannibalizing my code from: my old drone control software.

If you haven't seen it yet, so great latex info at this thread:

https://www.eaglersnest.com/forum/index.php?topic=906.0

http://www.westcoastpiet.com/images/Paint%20Piet/LatexPaintTest.pdf

http://www.wienerdogaero.com

Thank you for these! A great read so far!

The landing gear on your 1100 differs slightly from the plans. The 1/2 inch aluminum brace tubes that connect from bottom of fuselage to the center of axle are slightly spaced ( about 4 or 5 inches ) in your build. In the plans they meet very close together in the center of the axle. Wondering why the builder has made this mod ? Is this a common mod ?

Interesting, honestly I do not know.  I know this is the "older" 1030, not the newer one.  Did they change it when the new version came out?

It seems harmless enough, should I worry about it?

You also might want to look at the location of your static port placement, in your pictures it looks to be routed next to the second turtle deck former rather than the recommended placement closer to the tail.  Id personally be concerned that it could give errors in your gauges from the close proximity to the top of the wing and wing/fuselage junction.  I'm probably overthinking it, but at high angles of attack it intuivley feels that would be a low pressure area and error your airspeed indicator up as you approach stall.  If it does, and you know to correct for it, no problem, but I wouldn't do the first landing by the "numbers", I'd test the stall at altitude to get a base line.  

Yeah, I'm going to completely re-do the instrumentation on this aircraft anyway.   I actually plan on using some of my drone instruments, like this pitot tube:



Mounted somewhere way on the wingtip to get it out of any unclean air.  Then I just have a small cable to connect and disconnect if I remove the wings.

I know it might seem a little weird to trust drone rated equipment on the airplane but I've used probably two dozen of these particular pitot tubes on various drones, they've flown hundreds of not thousands of hours and survived crashes and water immersion and never ever gave me a single problem, summer, winter, or otherwise.  So I trust them  

I like that!! Never seen one before.  So is that useing a 4-20ma pressure transducer?

There are two versions, one does an analog voltage output 1-5V and one is a serial data controlled version. Basically what you are thinking.  They have a speed range of around 0-150mph at a resolution of 0.1mph or so. Probably good enough for this!  And they are altitude compensating, by their nature, so they are accurate at sea level, or at 10,000 feet, doesn't matter.

I'll be using this, plus a chip scale barometric altitude sensor, 9DOF accelerometer/gyro, and a high speed GPS / Compass module for my basic navigation. And because they are so inexpensive, I'll likely have 2 or 3 sets of them for redundancy.

Once again Keith1100 might be confusing different models, or variations? I can't tell for certain, but my guess is that you have a wide body fuselage, and that is the reason for the gap in the landing gear braces. The drawing is representative of the standard width fuselage.

Makes sense to me.  I'll have to look at the documentation when I get it down here and see exactly what this thing is.  Wide sounds nice though, more room for me!

Quoted from ITman496

  I actually plan on using some of my drone instruments, like this pitot tube:


Mounted somewhere way on the wingtip to get it out of any unclean air.  

Neat looking pitot, & clever idea to use drone instrumentation.

But be careful where you position the pitot. There is a lot of disturbed air around the wingtip, due to tip vortices as the airflows from over & under the wing converge.

The traditional - & effective - place to position the pitot is around the area where the struts attach to the wing, but about 6" below & 6" forward of the leading edge. This puts it outside of the propwash & away from the disturbed airflow around the wing.

Bruce

I had experience with APM in my plane.
http://www.lonesomebuzzards.co.....i-max+project/#num76

If you need any recommendations on architectural paint or coatings let me know.   Shame more wasn't known about the coating, lots of "premium" exterior grade house paints are pretty poor in quality.  Any exterior house paint should give you good UV resistance, not as much as a proper system but good enough for us.  What you should be able to do is lightly sand the coating and repaint it with a thinned high quality product, 100 percent acrylic.  I can go for days on paint, let me know if you have any questions for coatings or how to apply them.

Also, if you want to part with your old instruments I may be interested in them!

Vane4ka, that is a neat plane!  Now I am thinking of putting more tech into mine...

@Vane4ka    Yeah, you are doing what I'm thinking!  Why reinvent the wheel when APM can do it.

@beragoobruce     Good warning, I did not consider that.  I will take your advice on placement.

@davenportandrew     Yeah, I agree.  The paint isn't that stellar anyway and I kind of want to change the color a little bit.  I'd love to know everything you want to tell me about the paint for this stuff!  That is the plan, I have an artist friend who volunteered her time when I decided to do anything paint related on the aircraft, so if you did want to go over a procedure for stripping off as much as the old stuff as possible without hurting the fabric or the adhesive that bonds it to the plane and what brands of paint I should go for, please do!  I do not yet know the type of adhesive that attaches the fabric to the plane, I believe I will know soon.  Or do you just recommend no matter what it is, I just lightly sand it off anyway?  I'll have more pictures and information this weekend, so please ask all the questions you need to know so I know what to look for to answer you when I get the plane in person!  Thank you!

Quoted from Keith103

The landing gear on your 1100 differs slightly from the plans. The 1/2 inch aluminum brace tubes that connect from bottom of fuselage to the center of axle are slightly spaced ( about 4 or 5 inches ) in your build. In the plans they meet very close together in the center of the axle. Wondering why the builder has made this mod ? Is this a common mod ?

Quoted from Greg Doe

Once again Keith1100 might be confusing different models, or variations? I can't tell for certain, but my guess is that you have a wide body fuselage, and that is the reason for the gap in the landing gear braces. The drawing is representative of the standard width fuselage.

Hi Greg Doe, Thanks for the clarification about differing fuselage widths.
My post above was more in the nature of a question than any advise to ITMan.

Also @davenportandrew    Sorry I missed this part! But if I can succeed making my own instruments, I see no reason why I can't part with them  

ITman496, I did some checking, and my 1030 Max has a 22.5" inch width (outside to outside) at the cockpit. A friend has a "wide body" that measures 24.25". I used to have a TEAM brochure that gave specks on all their aircraft, but I couldn't find it? This may help you out about what version you have.
Even though these airplanes are plans built, there can still be variations. Basically the wide body is 2" wider then the standard body.

Very interesting.  I hopefully take delivery tomorrow if the weather cooperates, so I will finally be able to measure everything properly.

Is it possible that the bird isn't a 1030, but maybe an 1100?  Seems to be many changes from the standard 1030 (at least on the top side visually).

Lsaupe, You may be on to something? The turtle deck on ITman496's airplane is definitely taller then the one on my 1030. Looks like it's designed for the wrap around windshield on the enclosed cabin model.

Interesting! I did not think about that.  I will have to see what the paperwork says when I finally get it home tomorrow..

IT IS FINALLY HERE!

Ye HA!

It lives!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv9-1cPmZzc

YEEHAW that is what we want to hear.

OK. Now that you got it started, LISTEN UP.
I am no expert on this type engine, but there are experts out there who will tell you 2 things.
#1 Proper mix of oil and fuel is essential. ( I hope you did use a proper mix )
#2 Goosing the engine like that is probably not a good thing. From what I understand, there is a warm up procedure.

The 2 strokes are a reliable enough engine if treated with care.
If it were a Rotax, I could get you the manuals, etc.
I know nothing about the KAW.
Find a KAW expert, books, manuals, etc. and heed their warnings.
Also, make sure that your EGT, CHT is working properly. IT MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE.