Brief Description: Countersinking and fuel valve bracket
Unclecoed the fuselage side skins from the seat support removed seat support from center section and removed forward side skins.
Machine countersank the holes in the aft edge of the forward skin.
Began fabricating a bracket for the Andair fuel valve. When I ordered the fuselage kit I upgraded to an Andair fuel valve which is much nicer that the stock valve, but the fuel valve bracket that came with the kit was too narrow for the upgraded valve so I needed to fabricate a bigger one. Most builders seem to use a combination of angle iron and sheet aluminum but that seemed too bulky and heavy to me so I decided to make a revised version of the stock bracket which is wider to fit the Andair valve. I used .045 inch aluminum sheet, cut it to shape and bent in short stiffening flanges using my new Harbor Freight bending brake. The brake makes sharp bends so I used a 3/16" wooden dowel stick clamped under the metal bar of the brake to create a nice radius. This worked great and the resulting bracket looks just like the one that came with the kit except it's wider. Next I trimmed the edges of the bracket to fit between the mid-fuselage brace and the auxiliary longeron and clamped it in place.
Bending flanges on new fuel valve bracket
Kit supplied fuel valve bracket and the one I fabricated for the andair valve
