Allrite, the next few sessions are going to be the definition of tedium. Ian came again today and we started working on the pile of parts that need corrosion protection, deburring, dimpling, etc. Ian worked on getting the vinyl stripped from the skins and some of the other parts as well as deburring. You can see most of the parts left to do here:

Most people seem to be using a comant bent whip antenna down under the elevator (on the bottom of the tailcone) so I figured it would be better to get the doubler plate in there for that before I close up the tail cone. Here’s my doubler plate

Trimmed the right side skin, disassembled the entire tailcone, drilled out the hole in the bottom skin for the eyebolt and started deburring, dimpling and countersinking the various parts. Also did the corrosion protection and riveted together the elevator bell crank.

match drilled the top skins, seat belt attach points, and static ports.

Ian came today to help. Putting the two top skins and match drilling them is a lot easier with two people. Also fabricated the attachment bar support angle and elevator stop. Once the top skin was on Ian spent some quality time with the grinding wheel deburring various parts while I match drilled the aft deck parts and started on the skins. Also replaced the stiffeners that I had messed up.

Continued to fabricate the different braces and machine the rest of the small parts. Drilled and counter sunk the bellcrank rib angles and got the bell crank parts situated. Also put in the aft deck, then matched drilled the side and bottom skins.

Bent the longerons. I worked them slowly and they actually wound up coming out pretty perfect. Put together bulkheads, bottom skins, and side skins. The F-1079 bottom skin is pretty tough to get lined up, but I managed. I managed to measure some of the J-stiffeners wrong (too short of course), so I ordered some more.