No, I haven’t been doing nothing for the last month. Go look at the Tanks page to figure out what I’ve been up to.

Over the last four days I finished installing the Duckworks landing light kits in both wings. This is one of the last things I needed to do on the leading edges before they go onto the wings for good. Most of the ticklish and potentially expensive stuff got done back in April, like cutting openings in the LEs. What’s left is trimming and fitting the plexiglass lenses, and installing reflectors and halogen bulbs in the light brackets.

If you’re reading this you either (a) are building – or want to build – an RV, (b) don’t have anything better to do, or (c) are my mom. So for the benefit of you folks in group A, I’m gonna give you the gory details of finishing these lights as I learned to do it.

The first step is taking the plexiglass lenses as provided and trimming them to a size slightly larger than the leading edge opening – the instructions give apprpriate dimensions. You gotta provide enough space on the top and bottom for mounting strips, but not so much extra that you can’t get the lens in and out through the LE opening – which you’ll have to do when changing bulbs. To make this a little easier I stuck a drop light in the leading edge and used the illuminated opening to measure and lay out cut lines on each edge of the lens, as well as to marks the opening itself on the lens..

Before working with the lens, I covered it with removable masking tape to make marking easier and protect against scratches.

Marking the LL plexi lens

Once the cut lines were marked on both lenses, I trimmed them with a cutoff wheel in my Dremel.

Trimming the LL plexi lens

Following the instructions, I then fabricated “handles” from fiberglass-reinforced packing tape and coaxed the lenses into the leading egde. Pulling the lens tight against the leading edge, I match-drilled the mounting screw holes through the skins into the lenses. It’s important to keep that lens snug – it directly affects the final fit of the lens – but not to push on the lens from the back. That, apparently, can make the lens too snug and make it difficult to install. It’s also important to use a dull drill bit to make those initial holes in the plexi; sharp drill bits dig into the plastic and can cause it to crack. Here’s the lens with all but one hole match-drilled and clecoed.

Match-drilling the LL plexi lens

The next step was edge-finishing the lenses and drilling the mounting screw holes to their final sizes. Edge-finishing was easy with some sandpaper. I opened up the holes to final size using a special plexi drill bit from Avery, then countersunk the screw holes with a #30 piloted countersink. Countersinking is another opportunity to crack the lens if you go too fast – slow and steady gets the job done nicely.

Lens trimmed and drilled

A few other steps need to be accomplished before the installation is done. First, the reflectors and bulbs must be installed in the light brackets. Duckworks provides automotive driving lights that must be disassembled to provide those parts; the only gotcha here is to make sure you wear gloves when handling the reflector and bulb – skin oil on either can cause them to get too hot. Otherwise, it’s straightforward.

Lamps and reflectors installed

Second, the retaining brackets that hold the lenses in place had to be final drilled and have nutplates installed to accomodate the lens mounting screws. The brackets are match-drilled to the leading edges just as the lenses are. The only real work here is installing the nutplates, and attaching the brackets to the lenses with two-sided tape. One last thing – the skins must be dimpled to accomodate the mounting screws…#6s, I believe. Do yourself and use a real #6 dimple die set. The instructions imply that you can use #30s, but that just wouldn’t look right.

Lens installed

Finally, the light brackets were installed and the lenses attached. Overall, I was pretty happy with the results. The right wing lens fits a little better than the left, but both will get the job done.

One side finished!