Time: 5 Hours
Today started out with a few necessary errands that I had been putting off for a few days as I was too busy with the arrival of the fuselage. Once those were done I got right to work in the Hangar. I spent about an hour finishing up the edge deburring in the stainless steel firewall this stuff is pretty tough and requires more elbow grease to get the job done. After that I reassembled the firewall, stiffeners, spacers and engine mount brackets to match drill all the #30 holes as well as the 6 nutplate’s #40 holes that pass through the firewall.
I then disassembled all the parts and final drilled the nutplates in the stiffeners that don’t pass through the firewall. The plans then call for a 8° forward bend in the top of the firewall.
I took a measurement from the plans and marked a reference line on the flange side of the firewall. With a couple of 1×6″ boards cut to fit I clamped one to the lower side of the reference line and to the workbench. The other I just clamped to the firewall. This have me a leverage point to make a nice clean bend.
I then zeroed out my digital level to be able to tell when I hit 8°.
After a little pressure and tweaking I was able to get it spot on 8°.
Next up was to deburr all the holes in the firewall. Since the stainless steal is so hard you can wear out drill/deburr bits pretty fast. To help out you can use a lubricant like BoeLube, a Boeing made lubricant, to keep the bits cool and sharp.
I then marked off all holes in the firewall that I don’t want to dimple and dimpled the rest with the DRDT dimple machine.
That’s where I called it a day, next up will be to countersink all edges of the angles, supports and spacers for the firewall to accept the dimples. Then my first test at priming/painting to the final interior color.
