Dec 7, 2002  6 hours

I spent a couple hours this morning getting the left step drilled and shaped to fit the fuselage.  Then it was off to getting a Christmas tree.

Linda was doing PowerPoint at church tonight so I went back to the plane late this evening.  I primed both steps and did a little cleaning up while they were drying. I also had a couple of odds and ends to finish up as well.  I had never installed the center support bracket for the rudder and brake pedals.  I cut a couple of holes for litening purposes and riveted it in place.

  After the primer had dried, I installed both of the steps.  The steps weren't as bad as I'd heard they would be.  I think that they fit well.

Here's the inside of the step where it attaches to the baggage rib.

Started clecoing the inside of the baggage compartment to finish up the evening.

Saturday Dec 14, 2002  5 hours

Installed the aft baggage side skins.

Aft baggage floors riveted in place with plate nuts installed where applicable.

Configured and drilled the F-6111 banana aft skin stiffeners.  I couldn't find this in the instructions anywhere so I scanned some of the message boards and still didn't find any real answers.  I just drew a line in the center of the 6111 and aligned it to the pre-punched holes.  I did have to trim a little off of the end to get it to fit correctly.

I needed to get the 6111 drilled so that when I take the top aft skins off to dimple, this row of rivets can be dimpled.  I hope to stumble across some directions of how these pieces are to be installed later.  I think they need a couple of clips to attach them to the longerons and the bulkhead.  I'll fabricate something on my own after I get the canopy if I don't find instructions.

  I don't remember how much I cut off but the piece is about 17 3/4 inches long and was cut on an angle.  I believe that I only trimmed on the top, leaving the bottom alone.

These next three pictures show how much I had to twist these things to get them to fit.  I found this in searching the RV archives.  

Dec 15, 2002   2.5 hours

Drilled the bottom baggage bulkhead.

Radiused the  top baggage bulkhead to fit.

Laid out all the holes. I hope to get these drilled before we leave for Alabama for Christmas later this week.  Plane building will go to the back burner until after we return the weekend after Christmas.  Hope you have a Merry Christmas, have a chance to visit with your family, Santa brings you some good tools and most of all recognize the season as the birth or our risen savior, Jesus Christ.

Dec 18, 2002  4 hours

Linda was entertaining some ladies from church so I spent the evening in the garage.

I center hole is drilled to 3/8 and the other holes you see are for the screws.

This slot is where the shoulder harness cables will pass through the baggage bulkhead.

You will need these 8 washers to hold pop rivets that hold the wear plates in place.  Drill them before you cut them unless you have really small fingers.  Then just clip them apart with snips.

Back side showing the wear blocks attached.

Here's a picture of the finished product.  All the nut plates have been installed and I put a few screws in place to see how it all looked.

Dec 20, 2002  4 hours

Linda and Katie left this morning for Alabama.  Chris and I decided we'd get an extra evening of work on the plane before we leave on Saturday.

The first thing we did was to cut and install the forward baggage sides.  I didn't take any pictures but it was straight forward.  You cut between the two notches and install a couple of nut plates and that's it.

We decided to work on the seat bottoms next.  We only put two hinge points for the seat backs.  We're both over 6'5" and if we need closer hinge points, we'll use pillows.  Just a point about cutting the hinges.  I don't think that I did these correctly.  I left these pinned together and cut them to length ( I didn't cut the pin).  But you don't need the matched sets, you need the ends to be even with the last eye.

Chris drilling the hinge to the seat bottom.

The hinges riveted to the seat bottom.