Today I had something unique on the project....  Kevin Faris who recently completed his first flight and is in his phase 1 testing, came down and put the day in helping me get started on the fuselage.  It was alot of fun to see him go to town.  My eyes were glazed over trying to figure out the prints and Kevin started picking up parts and putting them together.  We made lots of progress during the day.  We got so busy, that I didn't even think about taking pictures until after we were done with everything.

Before Kevin got  down to help, I had fabricated F-633 control column mounts.  These were pretty straight forward.  It is important to drill the holes in accordance with the call outs on DWG 11 before you remove the extra material for saving weight.  If you trim the F-633 before you drill the mounting holes, it is hard to clamp the the mount to the spar web.

Next thing I did is drilled and countersunk the center section flanges for nutplates.  There is like 18 of these...  PIece of cake. I was having wing flash backs.

The center section has two holes in the center that need to be laid out and drilled in preparation for snap bushings.  They lay in a line for attaching inboard seat rib.  Yeah, I had to double check this.  That is the way Van's has it.

I actually drilled out the F-704 and the F-716 at the same time.  Otherwise, the unibit may have wanted to shift or elongate the hole.

Van's has other holes that need enlarged too.  This hole (between the 3rd and 4th rivet lines) had a pilot hole so it was just a matter of drilling it out to the proper size.

Ditto for the other side.

The cover support ribs below had pre-drilled pilot holes that need to be enlarged to accommodate electrical, brake and fuel lines.  There is a problem here with the holes.....  Can you see it?

I (actually Kevin) didn't notice this until we clecoed them to the F-704F.  All the holes should line up between the 4 cover support ribs.  You can see that the holes for the F-782B (small ribs) and the F-783B (large ribs) were drilled out opposite of each other.  The only thing I can think of here is that when Van's pre-punched the pilot holes on the small ribs, they had them in their punch press backwards.

Anyway, they are $3 each, so I ordered two new ones.  Even if the pilot holes are backwards, I should be able to enlarge the holes so that they match the large ribs now that I know what I am looking for.

UPDATE (12/25/07):  I got the new cover support ribs (F-782, aka: small ribs) from Van's.  They had pilot holes that were the same as the original ribs I had.  I.E.: backwards to the larger F-783B ribs.  I drilled the new rib holes differently than how Van's had them pre-punched.  See future log entry as to how they turned out.

I fabricated two center section spacers F-904J from some AT6-05/8x3/8 stock.  I took some time with them and got them exactly equal in length and the ends cut square.  These turned out really well.

DWG 22 has you remove some rib material for clearance of the control column and on two of the four inboard ribs, you cut a 2" notch out of the rib so the control column can be installed / removed. 

Here is what they looked like after nibbling out rib material to enlarge the holes necessary for clearance of the control column.

Here you can see the 2" notch cut out of the inboard two ribs.  There is a seat rib access plate (F-716B) that holds the removed rib section back in place.

Just another shot.

Anyway, Kevin and I got a lot done.  By the time we were done for the day, I was numb.  I had to take notes to recall everything we got done.  It definitely goes faster when you have someone helping you that knows how to build a plane already.  Tami was thrilled beyond belief.  She didn't have to help all day long....  She wants Kevin to move into the spare bedroom until the plane is done.