Time: 4 Hours
I had a couple hours in the shop before needing to head to Midway airport to pick up my girl :-). I’m still working on items that need to be done before riveting the top skin of the tail. One item is the smoke tank in the aft baggage area. The floor of the baggage area will be permanently riveted in place so I will need to put nut plates under the floor to attach the tank. I made some measurements to see where the best place was for it.
I then measured for four holes and drilled them to a #30 size hole to start with. Then I match drilled it through the floor.
Once I had the holes match drilled I worked on stiffening up the floor to support the tank weight. I used some .032 sheet to make some doublers.
I then figured out where the high pressure line would exit the floor and drilled a 1 1/8″ hole and put a grommet in. With the floor in place I test fit the tank and connections.
I cleaned up the doublers and primed them for riveting. I used the back rivet set to get all the rivets and nutplates.
Next up was to work on two of the antanaes that are located under the airplane. One is in the tail area that I need to do before riveting the top skin the other is more forward but identical so I wanted to work on both. These will be for the transponder and the ADS-B radios.
I used the antanae to mark holes on some scrap .032 sheet that would become a doubler. I marked the center of the three holes and drilled a #30 hole in each to use as a match drill to the skin. I then placed the doublers in place to drill down through the doubler and skin.
With those holes I used the step drill bit to open the holes to the final sizes. I then cleaned up the doublers and primed them.
When the primer was done I put the antanaes in place and tightened them down with the torque wrench.
In between the primer coats I put the panel eyeball lights in place. These are red LED’s that will be on a dimmer and shine across to the side panels for night flying.
That’s where I called it a day to head and pickup my girl.
