Brief Description: Ran a tap through the floorboard nutplates
Working on the floorboard nutplates seems interminable. Tonight, I tried to finish up by running a tap through all of the nutplates so that the screws would not be so hard to tighten and remove. They were so tight before that the heads came off of two of the screws while I was trying to screw down the floorboards. There is still plenty of grip on the nutplates to ensure that the screws will not back out. Then, it is finally time to remove the wings from the fuselage. I will need some sturdy hands to help me with this process, but I figured I can prepare for wing removal by removing the wing center section bolts. While it was a real challenge to get the wing bolts inserted, it is a gold plated bear trying to remove them. It is a real struggle. I was able to remove the four large bolts and two of the small bolts from the left side. I hit the wall trying to remove the third small bolt. It will not just pull out and it will not screw out. It got late, I was tired and I figured it will be there tomorrow. I can try to figure out some cleaver way to pull it out then.
An 8-32 tap, inserted into the chuck of my right angle drill tool
Slowly running the tap through each nutplate
Closeup of the tapping procedure for a floorgboard nutplate