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August 25, 2002   3.2 hours

I went out to the garage just to "piddle" a little bit this evening and ended up getting a lot of stuff accomplished.  

I made the four F-916C's.

   Modified two of the F-716-R and two of the F-716-L.  On all four of these, you enlarge the lightening holes by drilling a 1 1/2" hole using the pre-drilled hole as the pilot.  Then cutting on a line from the original lightening hole to the new hole that you've drilled. 

On one of the 716-L and one of the 716-R's, you cut a two inch gap at the top and adding the F-716B to the rib of the channel.  I cleaned up all the lightening holes and the ribs using the scotch-brite wheel on the die grinder.

I also installed all the platenuts (3 per) to each rib.  Enough piddling for the night. (I'll upload the pictures in the next couple of days.)

August 26, 2002  3 hours

I drilled the necessary holes in the ribs for the snap bushings and also drilled the 1 1/2" hole in the F725 baggage ribs for the steps.  I then clecoed the the center section ribs and bulkheads together. 

Then I clecoed the skin to the frame.  I haven't mentioned it but you may have noticed that I've moved out of the basement into the garage.  I have an old desk that I'm using to work off.  So far it's been ok without having the large work surface.  We'll see if it continues to work or if I'll need to build another work bench.

August 27, 2002 ~2 hours

I final drilled the skins to the F-716 ribs and the bulkheads.  Added the F623 corner ribs and made the four F-623-A's.

August 30, 2002  3 hours

This is one of the 715 ribs.  It is the only ribs that are not pre-drilled.  The plans don't say when to drill these and I tried to make it harder than necessary.  Drill these whenever you get the skin attached to the rest of the skeleton.  You will need to flute these as the holes in the skin is not a straight line.  I drilled one hole and then marked where the hole would be drilled and fluted between these.

I spent the rest of the night de-burring the ribs and then dimpling them all.  I also had to de-burr the edges of the baggage ribs (thought I'd already did this).

August 31, 2002  11 hours

This was a marathon day !!!  I started by etching all the ribs and anything else that wasn't nailed down that need priming.  Then primed everything. 

While the primer was drying, I dimpled the center section skin.  I ran into a little problem.  I broke the tip off the dimple die.  Fortunately, I ran to Rod's (Rod is building a -6A) and borrowed his so I could finish up the skin.

I finished up the day/night by riveting the skeleton back together.  It was great putting this back together. I've spent a lot of time building the last couple of weeks but I have a lot to show for it and hopefully, I'll get the center section attached to the tail cone soon.