Mon 15 March 2004 |
| Well a frustrating start to the day, I spent most of the morning trying to work out what stock material to use to make the gas-strut supports. The drawings refer to AB3-1 1/2, I couldn't find this anywhere, so I ended opening the wrapped strut, low and behold - two pieces of stock material!! That was the good news, the bad news is the bar is 6" long and that means I'm still about 3" short of material. I'm not sure what the deal is, but I'll probably just get some more from VANs. | 
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| I then went back to more part fabrication. The CAD drawings are working well. | 
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| This is 4 of the 6 needed parts, I drilled one side and then match drilled to the second side. | 
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| Then I tried a bit of rough shaping with sabre saw, this didn't work particularly well. | 
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| So I went back to the rotary burr, file and scotch-brite method. End result was fine. | 
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| I then had a quick go at making the cut out for the canopy latch in the scrap fuselage. The basic marking up is done with a template from VANs. | 
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| I then made a row of #30 holes and then joined them up with a needle file and smoothed the upper & lower cuts. | 
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| The result (although quick and crude) looks OK, so I think I have a plan of action for the real thing. | 
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| Also fabricated the forward strut mounts including the #10 taps. The central locations will have to wait until we get a 5/16 - 18 tap. | 
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| Dad managed to get a new 2" hole saw today so I finished the evening lightening the battery box and deburring etc. Not sure what I'm going to use for metal protection, it needs to be fairly high-temp paint to deal with the cowling / engine area. | 
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