First day back in the shop for awhile. I’ve been doing a fair amount of travel for work.  Two weeks in Las Vegas, and a couple trips to Pittsburgh have prevented any work on the plane. Additionally, my MBA classes have started back up in the evening. It is very frustrating not being able to find more time to work on the project. In other news, I will be moving hangars!  A hangar with an all concrete floor opened up in one of the privately owned hangar buildings.  Its essentially the same size and faces West.  The best part… its cheaper too!  I plan to be moved in by December 1st.

Today I set about completing the flap and aileron gap fairings / brace for the right wing.  Additionally, I added conduit to the right wing, and removed both tanks.  There really isn’t too much to say.

Just as before I had two rivets that I had installed prematurely.  I had to drill them out the reverse way of normal, starting with the shop head.  To do this, I use a center punch to make the center, and then I use that and a countersink deburring tool to get a nice even centered divot started. Then I simply drilled straight through.  Both rivets came out fairly well without any enlargement. 

Next I cut the flap brace to fit the rear spar reinforcement angles. 

I forgot to take pictures of the process I used to remove the fuel tank.  If you’ve ever installed laminate floor… you know the process.  I actually used an old piece of laminate floor I had in the shop to abut the trailing edge of the tank and then with Jack holding the tank, I used my dead blow hammer to gently nudge the tanks off.