I accomplished a number of miscellaneous tasks today. The first task was to set the final four rivets (2 on each side of the fuselage) that go through the forward side skins into the landing gear weldments. The rivets were hard to buck and required that all the screws in the weldments be removed in order to get a small tungsten bar on the rivet. Once set, I inserted all the screws with their washers and nuts. I will torque the nuts a little later when I am sure they won't interfere with some other work in the gear towers. While working on the weldments I deburred the landing gear bolt holes.
The next item was the fabrication of a ring matching the opening in the stick cover plate. The ring was cut from some fairly heavy aluminum and match drilled to the cover plate. Connie will be making a boot using some heavy khaki canvas that will be fastened under this ring. The plan is to wrap the boot material around the ring which will be mounted and screwed down on the outer surface of the cover as you see here. I need to order some number 6 platenuts to be riveted onto the ring. The screws will be inserted from the under side of the cover. Hope this description is clear.
Finally, I spent some time cleaning up the workshop and doing some preventative maintenance on my air compressor (draining the tank and changing filters).
