5/12/2004

First order of business today is the corner baggage ribs. These need to be trimmed on either end, turns out, though the directions are not quite clear on this. If you hold it up to the skin long enough, it'll eventually become obvious what you need to do.

Or you can just check Matthew's web site, where he also presents the idea of keeping this little flange to intersect the side. Cool.

One modified, one not, to give you an idea of what is needed. Once you've got the first one you can transfer it to the other by eye...

A brave soul raised the question of primers at the EAA 338 meeting last night, and a number of people (including the tech advisor) said nice things about Sherwin-Williams 988. I had looked at this a while ago, but couldn't find a local supplier and was averse to rattle-cans. However, I'm not totally satisfied with my normal primer (AFS), and getting set up to do small jobs is a big pain. Also, one fellow claimed that 3 cans was enough to do your whole plane -- which I don't necessarily believe. It does make a very thin layer -- not like AFS that tends to be a big build-up.

Anyway, someone at the group mentioned a local source so I went and got some. ($7 a can) It's certainly convenient for small jobs. Flashes off very fast (less than 20 seconds in fair weather), but can be nicked easily for at least a few hours. We'll see how tough it really is tomorrow after it's cured. It does not contain any chromates and it's not clear it has much anti-corrosion capability other than acting as a barrier. It may not even be a moisture barrier according to one post.

Ok, back inside the garage, I drilled the skin and the ribs-to-spar. Some of those ribs are pretty tricky to get at.

After drilling on the corners, the flanges need beveling for the step kit. This is a bit of guesswork, but I believe the main tube makes a 90-degree angle to the second rib there on the left.

Front half of the center section installed. Spacer bolts worked pretty well, but when pounding in the real bolts (I used 4 spacer bolts and 4 of the close tolerance bolts for alignment), the nuts move around a lot. Keep an eye on them.

Center section plate in position for drilling to the undrilled vertical bars. For some reason I thought this drilling was going to be tricky but it wasn't. Lined up well and was very stable.

They tell you to do a few countersinks on the underside of the skin. The manual is weird here, they seem to imply that you're going to be dimpling the center section for all the other holes. Other people on the list have derived the same...

Modification to corner rib attach clips.

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