Final fit of rear heel rails. Sized up the L flanges for the six areas needing the flange on the heel rails. Final prep of the seat back insert and frame; filed and deburred for fit before riveting.
Sept 9
3.2hrs
Squeezed all the rivets for the seat back; insert-to-frame. Saw where I was miss-squeezing about 18 of the 108. Will go back and drill them out tomorrow.
Sept 10
2.3hrs
Hacksawed and fitted up the sides of the pilot's heel rails.
Sept 12
.5hrs
Figure out and test what rivet length to use on 1/8inch rivets.
Sept 13
4.4hrs
Cleaned off pattern and glue from heel rails. Drilled and deburred starboard heel rail. Squeezed most rivets in starboard heel rail. Need different rivet sets to reach four of the rivets.
Sept 14
2.4hrs
Drew up the pattern and rough cut the port-side passenger floor. Test fit both port and starboard side.
Sept 15
1.3hrs
Worked on drilling the holes for the rivets and squeezing the rivets in the starboard heel rail.
Sept 17
2.3hrs
Finish riveting flanges on heel rails. Roung cut the starboard side front flooring.
Sept 18
1.2hrs
Filed the front two floor pieces to the line. Still need to recheck then sand smooth.
Sept 19
2.8hrs
Cleaned up heel rails. Refined notches on the two outer enclosures and deburred.
1hr
Drew up the pattern on display board for the pilot's seat pan. Ready for glueing up and cutting out aluminum.
Sept 20
3.5hrs
Cleaned pattern off sides of front flooring for flanges. Welded up the throttle mounts and the battery shelf(had only tacked them on before). Notched the front floor for easier mounting and also notched where the points meet on both floor halves.
Sept 21
1hr
Spent about four hours on the biplane tonight but most of that was playing with the throttle quadrants... trying to put one back together and trying to fit up both to the mounting pads. Enlarged the lower holes on both mounts... for some reason my match drilling wasn't matching up which is VERY odd. Only putting down one hour of work.
Sept 22
1.5hrs
Made the 1/4inch plate for the back of the front throttle quad; needed to bring the throttle away from the edge to keep the lever from hitting the fuselage tubing.
Sept 23
.8hrs
Cut the co-pilot's seat back insert out of the aluminum blank.
Sept 28
2.7hrs
Filed second seat back insert to the line then drilled rivet holes. Cut the second seat back frame out of the aluminum blank.
Sept 29
2.5hrs
Filed both seat back insert and frame. Bent up the seat back insert. Just about ready for riveting together.
Sept 30
1.7hrs
Match-drilled seat insert to seat frame. Applied mineral oil on patterns so that I can take it off those areas for riveting.
Oct 1
2.1hrs
Cleaned off paper pattern and plastic that would be in the way of riveting. Deburred edges and holes that were covered with pattern and plastic. Still need a little filing to do to have a nice fit.
Oct 3
2.5hrs
Final deburring and riveting of second seat back; insert and frame.
Oct 5
1hr
Spent two hours on it tonight... only clocking in on one. Drilled both top, side corner holes of the seat back out for 1/8inch rivets. Squeezed both rivets into seat back then figured out how to straighten out the sides (which were a little wavey). Will use the same aluminum "L" bracket that I used on the turtledeck hatch.
Oct 6
1.7hrs
Made the second throttle quad spacer out of 1/4inch aluminum stock.
Oct 7
2.5hrs
After farting around for almost 1/2 hour I got to work on the starboard floor board. Worked on it until I had all three "L" flanges fitted up. Total hours, including the farting around was 3hrs.
Oct 8
1.1hrs
Measured and cut the "L" flanges for the port floor board. A lot quicker this time. Used the sander on all pieces.
Oct 9
1.8hrs
Final fit of the front flooring. Trimmed the port inside angle to fit the adjusted flange. Marked all flanges for drilling.
Oct 10
2.8hrs
Drilled holes in flanges then match-drilled flanges to flooring. Riveted everything together on both the prot and starboard side.
Oct 12
1.4hrs
Cleaned off all that glue fromo the floor boards. Drilled out the four 1/8inch rivets from the "raised" flange and re-riveted it.
Oct 13
1.2hrs
Encased the floor boards and heel rails in plastic and put them back in place on the frame. Not happy with the throttle quad mounting plates so I ground them off to replace with 5/8inch x .o35 square tubing.
Oct 14
.9hrs
Test drilled stainless steel firewall material. Was pretty easy ? Not sure why but happy that it was. Tested running a few beads on scrap stainless steel to see how that would work also. Set up the beader to bead... need a helping hand with handling the 44inch diameter firewall.
.6hrs
Cut the excess 4130 throttle mounting plates that were still welded to the fuselage. Still need a little filing and sanding left before welding on the new tubing.
Oct 15
1hr
Filed and sanded smooth two of the four weld lines left behind by the throttle quad mounts.
Oct 16
2hrs
Worked on fitting up the two front tubes for mounting the front throttle quad.
Oct 17
2hrs
Cut the three additional tubes for the two quad mounts.
Oct 18
2.9hrs
Re-work of the tubing for the mounts. I won't be drilling into them now. I'll be welding on a drilled plate to them.
Oct 19
1.9hrs
Confirmed postion of throttle quad mount tubes. Tacked in place. Made the first of two mounting plates. Used as a test piece... holes are being drilled oblong. Looks good as a test piece when testing it on the tubes.
Oct 20
2.4hrs
Cut out both throttle quad mounting plates. Match-drilled the first one.
Oct 21
1.4hrs
Re-made one of the backing plates out of .o50 material and cut the holes to size.
Oct 22
1.3
Made the second backing plate out of .o50 material. Ready for welding on the fuselage.
Oct 24
3.hrs
Started welding on the tubes for the throttle quad mount. Three-quarters of the way through it.
Oct 25
2.6hrs
Finished welding the quad mounting tubes to fuselage and then the mounting plates onto the tubes.
Oct 26
.7hrs
Weld front overhangs on both quad mounts.
1.2hrs
Run beads on firewall.
1.1hrs
Start to re-make firewall. Traced pattern and marked bead lines.
Oct 27
1.3hrs
Draw the cut-lines and bead-lines on the stainless steel piece, not the aluminum.
Oct 28
.8hrs
Cut the 44inch circular firewall out of the 17gauge stainless steel.
Oct 29
N/A
Spent several hours tonight figuring out what I was going to do with the beading on the firewall and the angles of the "L" flanges; where the two pieces meet circle-to-exhaust port.
Oct 30
1.3hrs
Rolled two beads, and marked the exhaust port and drilled both corner relief holes.
Oct 31
3.4hrs
Match-drilled flange to half of the firewall (making in two pieces because the length of "L" extrusion isn't long enough.
Nov 1
3.2hrs
Second half of the match-drilling of flange to the firewall. Need to stiffen the area where the two flanges meet at the middle-top.
Nov 2
3.1hrs
Worked on fitting up the three aluminum flange pieces to the exhaust port opening. Started drilling rivet holes and the holes were drilled uneven do to the straight edge being curved.
Nov 3
2.7hrs
Cut and fitted up the flange pieces around the exhaust port. Drilled flanges for rivets. Match-drilled side pieces to firewall. Still need to match-drill the horizontal flange.
Nov 4
1.2hrs
Match-drill horizontal flange around exhaust port. Debured holes.
1.4hrs
Measured and drew up spacing of holes for anchor nuts on firewall flanges; the holes for attaching the sheet metal to the firewall.
Nov 5
1.5hrs
Re-figured the spacing of the anchor nut locations on the firewall flange. They weren't falling even at the bottom point. Marked the flanges by hand.
Nov 6
1.7hrs
Drill holes for 3/16inch holes on flange (anchor nut bolts).
1.8hrs
Drill holes for anchor nut rivets (rivets that secure anchor nuts to flange).
Nov 7
1.9hrs
Counter sunk rivet holes in first flange.
1.8hrs
Drill rivet holes in second firewall flange. Counter sunk rivet holes in second flange.
Nov 8
1hr
Experimenting on the right combination to use and setting for riveting the rivets for the anchor nut plates. Need to shave one side of a tall squeeze plate off to allow it to get close to the center threaded area.
Nov 9
2.8hrs
Riveting anchor nut plates onto firewall flanges.
Nov 10
3.1hrs
More riveting of anchor nut plates onto firewall flange.
Nov 11
1.3hrs
Drilled out and re-riveted about five rivets. Marked the flanges for around the exhaust port for drilling (for rivets).
Nov 12
1.9hrs
Drilled anchor nut plate and riveting holes in the three flange pieces for the exhaust port area. Need to re-make one of the shorter flange pieces... for some reason the counter-sink tool cut too deep into flange ?
Nov 13
4.1hrs
Several different work sessions. Re-made the two small vertical flanges for the exhaust port area (one had one of the counter-sink hole too large and both had the upper most anchor nut plate too far up to the point that it was behind the face of the horizontal flange so that it was unuseable). Match-drilled those flanges to the firewall. Drilled the holes in both for the anchor nut plates and the rivet holes. Counter-sunk those rivet holes.
Nov 14
2.8hrs
Cut off old battery tray. Made new battery tray.
Nov 15
2hrs
Spent four hours on the project... actually longer because i was researching stuff online and reading up on things. Anyway, only putting down two hours; cut off and ground down two brackets I was going to originally use to support the rear stringers around the tailcone. I then headed down to the basement workshop to work on a pile of tabs that I had started and didn't finish. And I STILL haven't finished them.
Nov 16
2.2hrs
Measured, cut and fitted edges for the pilot's seat back.
Nov 17
.9hrs
Measured, cut and fitted edges for the co-pilot's seat back.
Nov 18
1.9hrs
Riveted nut plates onto remaining flanges for the firewall.
Nov 19
1.2hrs
Used the deburring/counter-sink hand tool to begin counter-sinking the holes for the rivets in the firewall flanges. Discovered that the side anchor nut plates are in the way of nine of these holes. Will need to un-do attached anchor nuts to counter-sink holes then re-attach anchor nut plates.
Nov 20
.4hrs
Unhappy with the anchor nut plates being in the way so I drilled out the anchor nut plates on the horizontal exhaust port flange.
1.3hrs
Not real keen on drilling out ALL the anchor nut plates on the perimiter flange pieces so re-made the flange I just drilled the anchor nut plates out of. Match-drilled to firewall.
3.2hrs
Drilled the holes for the new anchor nut plates and then drilled the rivet holes for each one. It's ready for me to attach the anchor nut plates to it.
Nov 21
.6hrs
Cut the protective plastic film from the flange area on both sides of the firewall (1/2 of firewall).
1.6hrs
Filed the edge of the firewall smooth (got rid of the teeth marks from the tin snips) on 1/2 the firewall. Deburred the holes in the firewall. Counter-sunk the holes in one long firewall flange.
1.4hrs
Riveted the anchor nut plates onto the horizontal exhaust port flange. Had to re-do several of the rivets several times.
Nov 22
.7hrs
Clecoed 1/2 perimiter flange on firewall. Did a few test rivets for flange/firewall riveting.
.8hrs
Riveted on the first large 1/2 flange for perimiter of firewall. Just a few round head rivets to be squished.
1.8hrs
More riveting flange to firewall.
Nov 24
2.7hrs
Deburred the remaining perimiter flange holes on the firewall and filed smooth the edges of the firewall.