DoorMount19Ann

Word on the Europa Digest says that fitting and mounting the door frames is a real pain in the butt. They are right.

The drill is to temporarily bond the door hinges down with "5-minute" epoxy. When the epoxy has set up (half hour to an hour not 5-minutes) you try the door and see if everything fits/works. If everything fits/works you use the bonded hinge as a guide to poke the holes through the fuselage with a 4.8 mm (0.188" or a #12) drill. Insert the AN525-10R10 bolt and add an MS21042-3 nut to hold it on. Sounds easy enough.

Worked with abrasives to get the port door where it seemed to fit pretty good. So, I mixed up the "5-minute" epoxy and bonded the hinges down. Added clamps to keep it all in place while the epoxy cured.

It didn't open well at all. Lots of places where things interfered. Extensive application of abrasives to the offending areas. More test fits. Bonded the hinges again. Repeated this most of the day. Finally had enough and called it a day.