Began gently removing the ancient paint and rust from the gear legs. Have to be careful to keep scratches to a minimum but keeping the brush-wheel aligned with the gear legs. Also got that step off the legs -- never would line up in this configuration... ground the mount thin in a couple of areas to weaken it and hit it with the air-chisel and both popped off with little real work, or marring the leg itself...
Cessna must use a very substantial mount/socket for the legs because the socket mark for the upper end is barely 4" -- if I could mimic that somehow, maybe about 5" rather than the 6-7" as it looks in the plans, then maybe split use a 700X6 maybe I'd be sort of where Wittman was for fuselage height and a bit better if I'm careful with the tail wheel and actual wing incidence on the fuselage...
Also I weighed the gearlegs... so far aren't as heavy as I'd thought -- been allowing about 44# for both gearleg/axles altogether, but looks like it might end up a smidgen below 40# -- bare gearleg is about 15.9# each, so add in the Piper axle and sleeve...
