Bit by bit...

Making progress... all those minor things you would not think of... they take time. But it's all coming along really nice now. This will be a good week: our usual Cub building Tuesday night, then the welder will come on Thursday night to hopefully complete exhaust system. Then Friday May 1st is a public holiday = whole day with the Cub! Then we have scheduled rigging Tuesday next week. So this could be the breakthrough we have been waiting for. Perhaps we will finally be ready for some taxing very soon.

Some pictures with comments below.

Even new cowlings from Univair does not necessarily fit well... The top cowling had a gap of almost 2". Should have returned it, but they are probably all made like that.. Talked to someone who had seen it before and recommended to split it in the middle. However we decided to split it on the lower left side to minimize "the impact" and estetics.

Hangar neighbour Oddan and my cousin Sander joining the two parts with round-headed rivets.

Glued on a protection canvas for the top cowling. Made of solid sail-canvas (double).

Impressed by Sander who made the aluminum-piece for the soldering iron which cut perfect holes for the aileron control cable.

Mounting the aileron control cables to the control stick.

Jury struts installed after receiving the correct ones (for the rear strut) form Univair.

Upper half of the door finally attaches to the wing. I wanted a flat-fit there instead of the original mounting on the L-4.

By cheating a little and using Cessna flat drain valves, the hole in the door can be made much smaller.

L-4 stencils

Thanks very much to Tor Nyhus at 335 Squadron of Royal Norwegian Air Force for letting me in to the military paint shop to create all the stencils I needed. Fantastic helpful and friendly guy who has painted many of the great vintage aircraft in Norway, both flying and for museums.
Using the old machines went like a dream, even though they are really old. Some will skip a space and you get two letters on top of each other... but after about an hour I had made them all, except "NO STEP" which will give me a chance to visit the squadron again later...
Meeting people like Tor who wants to help strangers is always great.

 

Yeah, I have to wear the EXPERIMENTAL tag too... It hurts to put it on, but there is no way around that. At least it helps when it looks "military"..

WINGS ARE ON!!!!!!

What a difference! After almost 3 years I have been restoring an airplane which (most of the time) has looked like a pile of tubes and junk. Tonight the wings came on and it suddenly looks like an aircraft again! And it's so quick too!! 3 people, 8 screwdrivers and 30 minutes! :-) Truly a great moment and a major milestone for the project. Thanks again to my cousin Sander and also to Kåre from Aeromech for great help.

Biggest surprise tonight: a Cub can easily carry only one wing without falling over. 
Biggest mistake tonight: turns out we had pulled through the wrong type of control wire. There is one wire going inside the wing, and the other wire going along the wing strut. Neither one matched the original part number, so we had to make an assumption on which to use in the wing. Murphy won again. At first I thought it would be better to take the wings off again, cause pulling those cables through was difficult enough with wings off. But Techinal chief Sander did a great job changing those cables once again. THANKS!! Missing some minor parts (wrong size) like the rear strut clamps (had other Piper ones, probably to later Cub models) which did not fit. Or "fitsn't" as we say.

Next up: exhaust system and upper cowling modifications. Hoping for engine start before the end of April!