9/4/2006
My goal for the day was to work through the remaining stuff to get to start riveting the bottom skins, but my dad couldn't make it over to help today, so I worked around that a little bit and did some other things. I started this morning by trouble shooting my pitot tube installation. After figuring several different ways of installing it, I found the simplest way on the last try worked perfectly. Instead of using the pitot hardware supplied by Van's for the standard tube, I did use the hardware supplied by Safe Air, and added my special washer and an additional thin washer to make it work. The pitot tube will not stay in place while the wings are finished.
I moved on to the access plates next. The skins needed to be prepped, so I drilled, countersunk, and deburred the holes for the platenut installation. I still have to dimple for the #8 screw, but I'll need to get the dimple die from work.
I also drilled the skin to flap brace W-721 to final size #40. Then I removed the skins for deburring, and re-cleco'd them in place. This is where the day could've ended, but I decided to work on the wiring for the landing lights. First I cut a small hole in the conduit for the landing light wires to come out before they reach the tip rib. Then I used air to blow the string through the conduit in order to pull the wires through. The string is going to remain there until all the wires are run. This makes running the wires very easy.
Things are starting to get a little crowded at the root end...
The last thing I did today was label the wires for easy identification down the road.
4.5 hours