Tonight I fabricated the flap gap fairing stiffeners, and dimpled the screw holes for the landing light lens. Small tasks, but progress.
Dimpling
Wing skin dimpling
Today I dimpled the putter leading edge wing skins, for the landing light attach bracket, and the landing light lens cover. Not much to see, so no pictures today.
The landing light attach bracket holes require a special dimple tool, and I hunted around for a while before I found it. It uses a steel nail and a pop rivet gun to squeeze the dies together. It’s a clever invention, and is the only way you can safely dimple holes where access to both sides is limited.
Wing metal work
Tonight I completed a couple of steps on the wings. I countersunk the holes in the rear spar where the flap gap fairing attaches, dimpled the access hatch doubler, and enlarged the holes in the landing light mounts.
Finish Kit Inventory Finished
I wrapped up the finish kit inventory today. There were quite a few missing components, so I sent the missing-parts-list to Vans for processing. No pictures, but I am using the crate to store the canopy, engine mount, gear legs, cowling, and other fiberglass fairings.
Finish Kit Inventory
Yesterday the finish kit crate was delivered by the shipping company. Tonight I started working on inventory, and slowly checked off the assorted items.
The crate arrived without any damage, and I put it onto the dolly I had made for the QB fuselage. It’s 4×8 feet, and the crate is about 4×6 feet, and maybe 3 feet tall.
I opened up the crate and began removing cardboard and paper. The parts were well packed and undamaged. I pulled out a huge amount of packing paper, being careful to check for parts as I went. The canopy is the first obvious part in the box, and carefully positioned under the canopy is the engine cowling, and under that some cardboard boxes with heavier steel parts. In the other end of the crate, carefully secured, is the engine mount and gear legs. On top of the engine mount, and stacked around it all are various aluminum and fiberglass parts.
Tonight I started inventorying all the parts, which is a painstaking, but interesting, task. I hardly made a dent on the parts lists, but hope to finish it up tomorrow If I can.
Wing systems hole enlarging
Tonight I used my step drill to up-size two sets of wing system holes in the left wing. one will carry the AOA and Pitot pneumatic lines, and the other will carry the addition wiring for the pitot heating unit.
More riveting
Over the last couple of evenings I completed one more step in the Aft Fuselage Attach chapter. It’s slow going, but that has been a combination of tricky to access rivets, and a lack of time to work on the plane. I’ve been chipping away at it to keep some momentum going, which is the most important thing I think.
The step I completed was riveting the baggage compartment floor ribs to the bulkhead at the back of the baggage compartment. There are 4 ribs on each side, but the outermost are riveted later, as they need to be flexed out of the way to set the lap-joint rivets. For the 6 ribs that were riveted in this step, I used my gun with offset rivet set to get the 470 head rivets. It was a bit questionable, because I couldn’t get the gun completely square on a few rivets, but mostly the shop heads came out looking great. The bottom rivets on each rib are pop riveted, because it’s just too tight down there. I dusted off my pneumatic pop riveter, tested it, found my “wedge”, and then set them with surprising ease and good results.
Next step is riveting the ribs to the skin on the forward side of the fuse join, on sides and bottom skins, then it’s onto the lap joints, and finally the last baggage floor rib.