Time: 4 Hours
I had breakfast with the guys this morning before running to do some Christmas shopping. Man my right shoulder is in pain from al that countersinking of the past couple of days. Before heading home I stopped by my buddy Glenn’s to look at several parts on his -8. I wanted to make a few measurements to make sure I would end up with similar results. Besides finishing up the hole deburring of all the parts I didn’t get done yesterday I had three goals for this afternoon. The first was to get the 12 volt outlet, from steinair.com, and the headset jack holes cut for the passenger. I liked the quality of this 12v outlet and how it has a spring cover. These items will be on the bulkhead that’s even with the passengers seat back. I decided to put them behind the passengers right elbow since we would be getting into the airplane from the left side eliminating the chance of kicking wires as you entered.
I ran into an OCD issue as the bulkhead is curved at this location, so I could have centered all three holes between the flanges in their respective locations which would make the three holes appear curved. The other option, the one I chose, was to set the 12v outlet and make the two other holes plumb with it but not centered between the flanges. I just liked the look of nice vertical line between all three. OK OK I know these will rarely be seen by anybody and when it is nobody will ever care but I will see it and care and it’s my -8 so there. The second task was to prep the install of the Dynon autopilot pitch servo brackets. These get installed at the aft end of the rear baggage support ribs. The brackets nest along with the angles that are already formed into the ribs. Since I had the side skins removed there was some lateral movement with these ribs so I installed the baggage floor to give these ribs some stiffness.
Before I could drill the brackets I had to trim part of the top lip of the bulkhead at the aft end of the ribs.
With the ribs secured and the bulkhead trimmed I clamped the two brackets to the ribs.
I used the existing rivet holes to create a center line on top of the new brackets.
With those lines drawn I was able to mark off two locations for two rivets to secure the brackets to the ribs. I then took the brackets to the drillpress and drilled for holes. I then used those holes to match drill through the ribs.
Now those brackets will be ready to rivet along with the other parts as I build. The third and last task I wanted to finish today was to create two new angles for where the forward armrests would be for the pilot. I will be designing new and wider armrests that will have an angled’s part that meets up with the instrument panel. These angles will be used to support the new armrests when I’m done. Its a little hard to describe what I’m going to do but you will see later on in the build. For now I just cut some angle to match the length of the current armrest and used the existing holes in the armrests to drill the new angles.
I cleaned up the shop and decided to call it a night as I have an early flight tomorrow morning. Another great weekend in the Hangar!
