Lindy
5/17/2008
Brit is out of town at a hunt test with both dogs for the weekend, so I spent my day in the garage (and SUFFERING from a high pollen count today...) working on the tip up struts some more.
Before I dove in to that again, I did install the four screws (two on each side) at the forward edge of the 774 skin.
On to the mounts. First I fit and drilled the aft mounts to the side rails. A 2" c-clamp worked great here.
After those were drilled, I primed and painted those parts and set them aside to dry.
Next I stole another idea from Bill Repucci...there is no freakin' way I'm gonna struggle and cuss my way through getting a couple of washers and nuts on the threads of the screws holding the aft mount in place (they go up inside the rail, and are next to impossible to hold in place), so I made these clever little plates to hold nutplates inside the side rails. In the pic, it looks like the primed pieces are sitting on my bench, but they are in a picture I printed from Bill's site of the ones he made.
The paint takes a good twelve hours to dry, so the aft mounts are done for now. The forward mounts are made from 3/4x1/2 AL bar. I broke my bandsaw blade half way thru the second one, so I had to resort to the hacksaw...yuck.
The bars get drilled for the screws and ball joint threads, then are tapped appropriately.
Those were also set aside to dry after painting.
I knew I had made a small mistake right after I riveted the canopy frame skin on a couple weeks ago by realizing that I had not yet fit those forward mounts to the frame. See, the skin is supposed to be dimpled before it is put in place for a screw that holds the mount in place. Oh well, it's not a big deal, and I just countersunk each hole, and ran a tap thru the hole to get a couple of threads for the screw to catch on.
I did a test fit of the screws, and they'll work just fine. They *might* get fiberglassed over anyway down the road if I decide to make that area a little smoother.
4.75 hours