Day 18 – Horizontal stabilizer spar attachment brackets

Last night I continued on the task of creating horizontal stabilizer brackets. I dug around my shop in search of the best tool for cutting the heavy aluminum.  The hacksaw worked well, but I could not help but think that there must be something better. I tried my Dewalt 20v oscillating tool with a metal blade. That kinda worked but was a wired angle for the long cut. Then I stumbled across my handy ol’ reciprocating saw! With a metal blade installed, it cut strait (strait enough) through the material like hot butter! I suspect others would have used an angle grinder, but I never got to try that yet. Once my cut was done, it was back to filing to the lines for precision. No surprises here. It worked just like I expected. 

The next part was the drilling of the holes. Today’s went well, but it made me reflect back on the previous day’s work where the 1/8th went about 1/32nd south on me. I am told I may get a chance to fix this when I “final drill” the holes later on. I ordered a bit more stock just in case. Today, I also picked up a vise for my drill press to help hold things still next time I have to drill!

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