Today was a very successful day. I had two friends (Rich and Bob) come down to assist in the building process and we got a ton done on the boot cowl.
First step of the day was to clean up the sides and transfer drill the holes from the stiffeners to the sides of the boot cowl. After that we riveted them to the boot cowl sides (Pro tip: Do not rivet the top stiffener on each side. You will need to transfer drill through the skin into the top side boot cowl skin. Luckily, aluminum rivets are easily drilled out.).
After that, we fitted up the instrument panel frame to being fitting the top boot cowl skins. We had to remove some of the frame to clear some welds, but nothing major. One thing we couldn’t figure out is how to attach the instrument panel to the panel frame without riveting the panel frame to the fuselage. The panel frame has a mounting hole that corresponds to a tab on the fuselage, but the panel does not. So we just rolled with the panel frame and did a lot of checking and measuring to make sure we were staying flush with the tabs on the firewall. In the end, this seemed to work out, but I guess we won’t really know until the panel goes in.
The top sides sit right against the tube that connects the firewall and the top of the fuselage. I think there will be a rubber grommet there, but there isn’t much space. I’m going to look into that because I know it needs something there and I don’t know if I have enough space.
When we first started putting on the top sides it didn’t seem like they would reach down to the stiffener location on the side skin. After transfer drilling holes starting from the middle at the top and moving outboard, everything did fall into place. We spent a lot of time looking it over and I would suggest the same to others getting to this part of the build.
Another thing that we did was to transfer drill the top skins from the firewall tabs without the spacer strips in between the tabs and top skins. We thought that this was making it too complex and we will do that on the next work day.
After we finished, we had drilled out all the holes for the boot cowl. The next items are to fit up the spacer strips, fit up the instrument panel visor, and debur. A lot of deburring.
Big thanks to Rich and Bob for the help. We got a ton of stuff done that would have taken me weeks probably at my current pace. Also, it was a lot easier to have help when fussing with the boot cowl. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it by myself.
Next potential build time is over spring break which will be in two weeks. Midterms are this week which are stressing me out, but I’m not the first. I always have trouble breaking these engineering problems down. I think I just need more practice!
(18 h)
