I wish I had enough interesting information to blog every day, but despite the last 17 hours of effort over the last two days, I’ve only got one new picture for you. This is the fuselage box all updrilled, deburred, and ready to rivet/bolt. Lots of bolts are called out to fasten the box together, which I suppose it for adding extra strength.

One thing of interest is that there were some needed holes that were impossible to drill with my hand drill and even the 90° chuck I got. They are inside the box where the gear braces on the floor meet the vertical beams on the side walls, down in the bottom corner. In the end I had to go to Home Depot and buy a Milewaukee angle bit that only holds hex bit, so I had to buy all new drill bits with hex ends. It did the trick.

There’s a bunch of parts in this box assembly. Over that past few days it was exciting to see the fuselage lengthen and look more and more complete. And then, just when it all came together and fit perfectly, I had to take it all apart leaving me with just the tail I started with last week. Onlookers are puzzled by the backward progress. But I explain it’s a necessary step to prepare each piece for final fastening… and that is a time consuming process.

Note: The plans for the side wall make you think that the skins are missing a pilot hole just below the wing. When I noticed that I figured the skins pre-dated that plans (Kerry told me that was the case in other instances) so I added the hole. That was a mistake. The wing root covers the hole and the typical pop-rivet would cause it to bulge out. So now I’m left with an extra hole on each side of the box. It’s only visible from the inside, but I’ll always know it’s there and it’ll bother me forever. Maybe I can countersink the hole with the deburring tool and put a flush rivet in there to put my mind at ease.

This blog entry brings me up to 300 hours of built time. Only 200 hours left, according to Sonex marketing. Yeah, right!

Box Ready To Rivet