I had a quick tool project to take care of when I got to the garage today.  I used a spare piece of aluminum angle and some pop rivets to make a screw driver holder for my cart.  

Next up was working on the tie down brackets.  I had to run to Ace to buy a 1″ saw bit for the tie down spacers.  This took me longer than it should have as I had a million interruptions today.  Either way, the only thing remaining is to drill the nut plates and rivet.

First, a sidenote:  This post from Van’s Airforce is an excellent argument for doing a slider canopy as opposed to the tipover.  Having the roll bar forward must make the aircraft more survivable in the event of a major bird strike.  In this post, see the results of a Turkey Buzzard strike. 

I didn’t get much done in the shop.  I measured the tie-down spacer brackets per the plans and used the scotchbrite wheel to clean it all up.  Unfortunately I don’t believe I have a tool that will let me cut a 1″ hole in the center, so I had to stop there.  I did however trim off 1/16th of the tie down bracket and clean that up as well.

I went back to the shop this afternoon and finished up all of the nut plate riveting.  Its about time… that took awhile!  A quick dab of primer and I was done. Next I started on the tie down brackets, but didn’t get any further than cutting the spacers.  I finished up with a good shop cleanup.

Here is the tie down W-726 ready to be cut.

I’m not sure if I ever posted about the HF air cutter pictured here.  It was $9!  About a month ago, it started not shutting off…. the cutting disc would continue to spin and air ran continuously regardless of the handle position.  I tried some oil since it looked like it was sticking to no avail.  When I took it apart, I discovered an o-ring that had torn.  $0.55 later an o-ring from the local Ace got it working like new.  This tool has already worked past its expected life time at $9… great deal, and really not a bad tool. 

That is a lot of nut plates!

Here are the two nut plates that fasten to the front of the spar.  Note the warning sticker.  Some guys at the airport were telling horror stories about this… apparently this sticker didn’t use to be here, and they learned the hard way not to ream the holes….

Here are the two spacers cut and the other main piece of the tie down bracket.  These tie down brackets need to be 7 & 15/32″ long.  The pieces shipped as shown here at 7 & 17/32.  Seriously??  I have to trim 1/16th?  Normally I wouldn’t even try to trim that much I’d just use the scotchbrite wheel, but thats a lot of work in this case for the scotchbrite wheel, so I’ll probably trim just a hair off and then hit it with the wheel. 

The empennage and fuselage instructions are written like a series of bulletized steps.  The wings are in paragraph form, and you really need to read more than one line at a time.  I recommend reading at least a page ahead, and a few paragraphs ahead several times.  I use a highlighter to mark what I’ve completed so far. If its not complete, or something I should pay attention to later, I leave it unhighlighted.  Works well.