Sun 11 January 2004 |
| Started the day continuing with the deburring and dimpling of the spar and internal elements of the HS. | 
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| The dimpling of the front 3 rivets in the HS-601 skins was a bit tight so we used the pop rivet with holey dies. Worked well and meant we didn't need to stretch the skins too much. | 
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| We then finished the skins with the C frame dimpler. Apart from the edges of the skins the HS is now done and ready for priming. One gotcha to watch out for, the intersections of the skin, HS-702 spar and main ribs are 3 layers of material, therefore the middle layer (the spar) should be counter sunk and not dimpled - don't ask how I know ;-). | 
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| We then spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the shed and tidying the workspace. As a bit of light relief we got down the forward fuselage components and tried to mock-up the cockpit area and panel. This seemed to show more problems than it solved. Whenever we put together the upper section (even with clecos) we seemed to come up short in space, and significantly so (1/2 inch ish). This leads us back to the damage on the edge spars that we found after delivery. | 
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| I'm still trying to work out how serious the damage is in the long term. More emails tonight to various email lists and researching the distances of other peoples kits / quick builds. | 
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| We are still not sure of the best approach to the stressed F-704's. They seem to have been given one hellava wack. | |
