Although I am calling this “Day 51”, it was actually a couple weeks of an hour here and there with a couple marathon build days. The goal was to get this thing OFF the table and get some garage space back. I have not had much time to build, but this year I retired from […]
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In what seems like forever, I finally checked off another task in the build. While nothing huge, it’s the first time since the spring that I have been out to work on the stabilizer. This task was a bit complicated as you have to reach into a small space to hold the bucking bar while […]
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With only a couple hours to spend today, I decided to get into the shop and do something productive. The Bandsaw First up, I fixed my bandsaw. It broke a few weeks ago, and it took a while to get the parts to fix it. Once they came, they sat for a while as I’ve […]
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With a ton of rivets to shoot, I was reflecting on what’s worked and what is still giving me trouble with attaching skins. One of my big concerns going in was that I may dent up my work with the rivet gun, or by bouncing the bucking bar around inside the stabilizer and make a […]
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With only dozen or two rivets, this looked like an easy task, but the job had a couple challenges. I started off with attaching to some of the in-spar nose ribs with blind rivets. This was going to be the easiest part, so I gleefully got to work. Next was the “fun” part. The rest […]
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This was a long day, and I got a lot done. I also made a few mistakes along the way, but luckily, I’m getting good at drilling out rivets. Too bad I’m not just as good at following instructions! To start, I connected the two inspar ribs with a stringer web. My rivets were perfect. […]
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With the rest of the parts done, the last phase before riveting was to dimple the skins. I started off by doing the edges with my pneumatic squeezer. It does a decent job, but I missed the hole with one of the shots and made a new one. I sent a picture of the damage […]
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With only one side of a spar let to countersink, I was able to finish that task and start dimpling. With the help of my pneumatic squeezer, I got through ALL of the little pieces. What’s left now is to do the skins. That will be another night.
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With the parts in piles, I have three big jobs ahead. Today was the day to tackle the countersinking. With a couple hours to spare, I got much of it done. I’ve just got one side of a spar left to do. Once that is done, I can work on dimpling, and then deburring.
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