MEK-off the pattern from the battery tray. Clean it up. File-down the left-over weld on battery tray frame.
Jan 3
1.4hrs
Weld on new tray. Warpping. Cut off new tray.
Jan 4
2.5hrs
Cut new tray and file off weld slag from frame. Will wait to weld on new tray until weight and balance done. Still need to weld on frame to fuselage.
Jan 5
1.1hrs
Made two connecting rods to connect front and back throttle quads.
Jan 6
1.6hrs
Weld ends onto throttle interconnects. Fitted and notched battery tray in place.
Jan 7
.9hrs
Tacked battery tray frame to fuselage (front points) and initial measuring of upper support tubing.
1.1hrs
Notching and fitting of upper support tubing or battery tray. Tacked onto tray and fuselage.
.5hrs
Started finish welding battery tray to fuselage.
.8hrs
Finish welding on battery tray.
.4hrs
Mock-up of measurements for upper wing to test out sway wires. Looks like they'll be coming into the front pit pretty far.
Jan 9 -13
5hrs
Figuring out the wing center section. Drew up the SL Wire Lugs that I'll need for build.
Jan 15
1hr
Went over to Mike's house. Bent up the 4130 sheet metal side-formers.
Jan 16
1hr
New jig support for upper wing center section spar. Test for sway wires.
Jan 20
1.2hrs
Cut off upper, outer former supports. Started grinding/filing down excess welds.
Jan 21
2.7hrs
Finished filing excess welds from tubing. Cut and fit two new supports. Ready for welding.
Jan 23
2hrs
Weld vertical supports for upper former for station 24. Filed welds then sanded.
Jan 24
1.6hrs
Started looking at sheet side formers for skins. Decided that I needed to cut a sheet metal blank for fitting and figuring.
Jan 25
1.5hrs
Cut additional sheet metal blank for figuring out location of metal former supports. Started fitting/figuring out skin and former placement.
Jan 26
1.3hrs
Tweaked the side formers... making them as straight as possible.
Jan 27
2.2hrs
Started aligning the side formers. Made a jig out of the sheet metal to hold the side former while aligning with the next one behind it. Need to do something with the support tubes I have welded in place.
Jan 28
1.8hrs
Notching the pseudo port upper longeron to allow anchor nut plates to fit in close.
Jan 29
2.2hrs
Making washers to weld over notches.
Jan 30
.8hrs
More work on washers... grinding down to size.
Jan 31
1.3hrs
Weld washers to pseudo longeron.
Feb 1
1.7hrs
File off excess weld build up around 3 washers
Feb 2
.7hrs
File off excess weld build up around 2 washers
Feb 3
1.3hrs
Finished filing ""cups" on Starboard side. Started setting up the sheet metal for alignment of holes on Port side.
Feb 4
1.2hrs
Filed five holes for recesses. Cut out five blanks for cups to cover holes.
Feb 5
2.5hrs
Make cups and weld in place.
Feb 6
1.5hrs
File five additional holes.
Feb 7
1hr
Weld in and file cups smooth.
Feb 8
1.1hr
Four more notches for cups in forward, Starboard, pseudo longeron.
Feb 9
2hrs
Cut four additional cups. Welded onto forward, starboard side.
Feb 10
1.1hrs
File smooth four more cups on pseudo longerons.
Feb 11
.8hrs
Filed open the remaining four holes on the forward port side.
Feb 12
2.8hrs
Grind remaining cups to size. Weld onto longeron. File welds on all remaining cups.
Feb 13
1.8hrs
Cut off first two ends. Cut four caps from .o32 4130.
Feb 14
1hr
Cut off remaining two ends.
Feb 15
1.8hr
Weld on caps. File down weld on first cap.
Feb 16
1.2hrs
Filed excess weld from the three remaining caps. Ready to test fit the sheet metal skins again.
Feb 17
1.5hrs
Test fit first sheet metal skin (starboard side). Small gap on rear upper former. Cutting small filler piece to weld in.
Feb 18
4.3hrs
Make second filler. Fit, tacked... then welded both onto former.
4100 hours !
Feb 19
.7hrs
Former is warped. Over thought how to fix. I don't want to fix this. Traced firewall for new former pattern. Ordered new tubing for former.
Feb 20
.7hrs
Cut off old tabs. Found tabs I made while looking for pattern to make new tabs.
Feb 22
1.3hrs
Bent new former.
Feb 23
2hrs
Cut former to size. Trying to figure out how I want to position and weld on new former. Cut curve off of old former and using vertical supports to position new former (still need to tack, cut new supports, and then weld in place).
Feb 24
1.8hrs
New upper former checked for alignment then tacked into place. Cut the existing vertical former supports off and filed and sanded areas.
Feb 25
2.5hrs
Aligned and welded on the vertical supports for the new upper former.
Feb 27
2.6hrs
Align and tack on all nine anchor nut tabs onto the new upper former.
Feb 28
1.1hrs
Weld tabs onto new upper former.
Mar 1
.7hrs
Flipped fuselage. Began to look at forward belly formers and areas that would need to be addressed around the openings for the landing gear.
Mar 2
2.5hrs
Figuring out what to do with the belly former. Cut off the forward one. Cut down the sides of the second one back. Will re-make the forward one. Modify the second one back.
Mar 3
1.2hrs
Figuring out the second former still. Need to make it so that the fabric can attach from lower longeron to lower longeron.
Mar 4
2.4hrs
Fitted, notched and filed tubes for modified belly former. Tacked port side tubes into place.
Mar 5
3.4hrs
Cut, fitted and tacked starboard side tubes into place. Completed all welds on all four areas to be welded. Need to make and weld on anchor nut tabs.
Mar 6
1.5hrs
Drill holes in sheet of tabs. Deburr.
Mar 7
1.3hrs
Cut out tabs and grind front curve on each.
Mar 8
1.9hrs
File and sand smooth - edges on all tabs. Bend 45degree angle on them.
Mar 9
.8hrs
Trimmed tabs to length.
Mar 10
1.5hrs
Bending/shaping the new belly former.
Mar 11
1.8hrs
Aligned, adjusted, tacked on new belly former.
Mar 12
3hrs
Finish weld belly former at station 10.o. Align and tack tabs on new belly former.
Mar 14
1.4hrs
Align and tack on six remaining anchor nut tabs.
Mar 15
2.1hrs
Tack on two additional tabs and finish weld all tabs.
Mar 16
1.3hrs
Cut-off/trim former ends. Weld closed. Think through next step - align and weld on side formers.
Mar 17
1.2hrs
Started fitting up starboard side-former. Twernt easy to get at... at first.
Mar 18
5.2hrs
Two sessions; Tack and weld on starboard side former (with anchor nut plates). Most of this time is figuring how to get at the side former for tack welding it, next session cut/trim former for port side - then tack and weld into place.
Mar 20
1.2hrs
Started figuring out the fit of the 2nd side-former for sheet metal skin.
Mar 21
1.2hrs
More work on the 2nd side-former fitting.
Mar 22
1hr
Decided that I needed to have the first skin in place before I could position the second one correctly.
Mar 23
2.1hrs
Fit and cut/trim 2nd side-former of second station section. Make sense ?
Mar 24
1.3hrs
Cut aluminum skin test panel. Used for forward section. Fit first of two second side-formers in place.
Mar 27
2hrs
Tack/welded 3rd side-former with anchor nut plates. Fitted tack/welded 4th side-former for attaching the sheet metal skin.
Mar 28
2hrs
Fitted/trimmed the two remaining upper side-formers.
Mar 29
.7hrs
Cut an additional alignment skin. Test fit for remaining set of side formers. Former runs past two parallel upper formers than angles to the remaining. Need to make an additional alignment skin before aligning and tacking.
Mar 30
2.3hrs
Cut aluminum sheets for aligning third set of side-formers. Started drilling attaching holes and fitting into place.
Mar 31
1.8hrs
Tweaking the fit before tacking/welding 3rd set of side formers on. Not liking what I have. Rethinking it.
Apr 1
2.3hrs
Aligned, tacked and welded on the final set of side-rails (wrong to call them formers ?).
1.4hrs
Checking rails-to-former fit with aluminum sheet. Thinking through the windshield.
Apr 2
3.6hrs
Started on the windsield then decided better. Flipped fuselage. Measured for pseudo bottom longeron in first bay. Cut side-rails to length. Cut .875 x .o35 tubes to length. Made washers to cap ends of both tubes.
Apr 3
1.2hrs
Made stand-offs for both pseudo longerons; cut tube and lathed square and to size.
Welded on the stand-offs onto the pseudo longerons for the belly area.
Apr 7
1.9hrs
Aligned and welded on false belly longerons.
Apr 8
2.5hrs
Final check for the fit of the side-rails on the false belly longeron and they'll work how they are. Flipped the fuselage to align and weld on the final set of side-rails to the false belly longerons. Slightly bent one of the upper side-rails. Will need to tweak it back out. Looking closer to the other side-rails, decided I wasn't happy with three of them and the slight bow they have. Deciding on what to do with those. In the meantime started creating a rotisserie to use for spinning the fuselage with the firewall in place. Created CAD for possible large tabs for use instead of side-rails. Then... thought of grinding off center welds on side-rails, clamping straight-edge to them and re-welding for possible cure to slight bow?
Apr 9
1.7hrs
Cut, weld, cut back, starboard, upper side-rail (had a bow, then the straight-tube that I used to re-align had a bow).
Apr 10
1.3hrs
Cut welds on all side-rails (all had slight bows in them).
Apr 12
.7hrs
Grind excess metal from left-over welds.
Apr 13
1.2hrs
Grind and sand weld build-ups.
Apr 14
4.2hrs
Sand weld build-ups. Make jig for straightening side-rails.
Apr 16
2.9hrs
Align and tack on all six upper side-rails.
Apr 17
1.1hrs
Not happy with side-rails. Cut new blanks.
Apr 18
.7hrs
Tried cleaning off surface rust from blanks. TOO MUCH time... decided I'll order new material.
Apr 19
2.1hrs
Waiting on material for side-rails so I decided to drill the holes for "SL wire lugs" for the upper wing center section.
Apr 20
1.2hrs
Cut all eight lugs from material. Rough ground two to shape.
Apr 21
2.2hrs
Ground all SL lugs to size. Filed and sanded three close to finish.
4200 hours !
Apr 22
3.8hrs
Filed and sanded SL lugs. Cut six blanks for new side-rails.
Apr 23
3hrs
Drilled 44 holes in side-rails.
Apr 24
1hr
Clean off paper pattern.
Apr 25
1.2hrs
Glue on paper patterns.
Apr 26
1.3hrs
Grind and sand edge of side-rails.
Apr 27
1.5hrs
Began drilling rivet holes.
Apr 28
1.8hrs
Finish drilling rivet holes.
Apr 30
3.5hrs
Cut off old side-rails, begin grinding down welds. Drill out old anchor-nut rivets from side-rails.