Panel area work
Match drilled the seal support to the center sub-panel piece.

Made the F-793 angle which holds the fresh air vent to the side of the fuse. The plastic vents that come with the kit are very hokey! After fussing with them a bit, I think I'm going to buy some nice aluminum vents. B&B Aircraft Supplies in Gardner, KS has them for $90/pair. (Or at least did...)

Cleco'd in the panel structure to the fuse and started fitting the F-771 forward top skin. I had to do some fluting of the subpanel to get holes to line up. The 768B Outboard panels required a serious amount of fluting to get the holes to line up. The bottom tab holes I really couldn't get lined up, so I drilled it as close as I could.

Once I fluted the subpanel, I noticed that this top skin was going to be a serious test of my patience. The holes where it overlaps the side skins weren't even close to lining up. I could get the rear hole cleco'd in .. but those forward #30 holes were going to be a challenge. I honestly thought I wouldn't get it lined up. Here is what I did... but be carefull.

I started on one side by cleco'ng the holes to the side skin and then laid it over the top. I was able to get some cleco's through the skin and into the panel ribs with some coaxing. It still didn't appear I was going to get things to line up.. the front edge of the skin wasn't coming down far enough. I took a mallet and tapped along the front edge of the skin where it sits on the flange of the firewall. This worked and I was able to get the skin cleco'd on with some tugging BUT I later discovered that my tapping with the mallet was a bit excessive and kinda of bowed the firewall at the top. It is slightly noticable from the outside but became really apparent later when I pulled the skin off. Too late for me to do anything since I already drilled the skin/firewall flange holes. If you try this, I would suggest lightly tapping on BOTH sides of the firewall.. not just one.

Hole alignment before fluting sub-panel.

Hole alignment where top skin overlaps side skin.

F-771 skin cleco'd on!

Shot of the panel in place. Those ribs just happen to be centered right in line of vision of the pilot/passenger. A lot of builders are modifying the ribs and offsetting them to the left or right. I'll be doing the same.

(Time: 4 hrs)
- posted by Matthew @ 7:35 AM