Wed 22 December 2004 |
| A short day as we had errands to run this morning. First up Dad checked the HS alignment. After re-reading the instructions the 'simple' option was to just put the 3/16" drill under the rear spar and drill, the extra check was the tooling holes should be the same height from the rear deck. Surprise, surprise follow the instructions, and it all works fine. | 
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| I started making the panel covers for the forward turtle deck. Simple but steady progress. | 
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| With everything lined up the drilling could start. We started with pilot drills and then worked up the sizes. | 
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| The HS was rechecked frequently for level / alignment. | 
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| #30s from the front, | 
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| then final 3/16s from the back. | 
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| I started the rear VS attach bracket. I don't understand why 1x1 1/4" angle is needed for this part but I had the stock pre-cut ready so I just continued. | 
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| Then Dad trimmed 5/8" from the forward VS spar. This is as per plans, however as you will see later, I'm not sure I would trim it quite as much 'next time'. | 
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| Mounting the rear bracket. | 
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| The clamping / rigging of the VS is a little fiddly. | 
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| After sorting the heights from the lower bracket, we are pretty ready for rear spar drilling. | 
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| The front spar bracket however didn't really 'look' right. Particularly the lower 3/16 bolts which connects the forward VS spar to the forward HS spar. | 
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| I drilled the lower #30s on the pillar drill and then match drilled the upper locations. | 
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| Final drilling of the 3/16 bolts for the VS spar bracket goes into the longeron. The edge distance is tight on the longeron but looks OK. | 
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| Everything finally lines up, although I need to understand what vertical alignments we can measure. The forward spar / rivet attach is very marginal. More tomorrow.... | 
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