I am installing two Duckworks HID landing lights on the plane (one in each wing in case you were wondering).  I tested the HID lamps when I first got them.  MAN ARE THEY BRIGHT.  I have been kind of nervous about this task for some time.  After you get your leading edge riveted together, you CUT A BIG HOLE IN IT!!!  That just isn't right.

First things first, I had to determine the location for the light cutout.  Duckworks gives you a pretty straight forward template that shows the top of the light cutout 18.75" from the top edge of the leading edge skin.  This surface is curved and I found it somewhat difficult to accurately measure this (even with a flexible tape measure).  So I cut a string to 18.75 inches and taped one end of the string at the top edge of the leading edge skin (say that tongue twister 3 times fast).

I ended up measuring this about a half dozen times before I got the paper template properly positioned.  The other mark for template placement is the left edge of the paper should intersect the centerline of the inboard ribs row of rivets.

I always measure at least twice.  As a backup to my "calibrated string", I double checked my placement of the paper template.  The two measurements agreed.

Here is just a picture of the template from the bottom side of the leading edge.  If you can't tell, I decided to do all this fabrication with the leading edge clecoed to the wing spar.  Mainly because this gave it a solid mount while I was cutting this hole out.  It worked great.

For the first step, I used the die grinder with a 3" cut-off wheel and did a rough cut.  I had never used a die grinder and cut-off wheel so I wasn't sure what to expect.  I held it firmly and left plenty of room between the die grinder and the sharpie marker finished edge.  The die grinder was pretty docile.  Turned out my fear of what the cut-off wheel was going to do to my wing skin was unfounded.

Next, I switched over to a rotary burr bit.  WOW are these things aggressive.  It filed away the aluminum like soft butter.  By the time I was done I wearing so many aluminum chips it looked like I had a severe case of aluminum dandruff.

Even as aggressive as the rotary burr bits are they were also very controllable.  I was able to take the opening right up to the edge of the sharpie markings.  I left about 1/16" so that I could use a vixen file to straightened everything up.

Using the fine teeth on the vixen file, I was able to straighten up the lines on the cutout.  When the cut is not a straight line, the rotary burr bit becomes a little harder to accurately control.  I just took it slow as you could make a big boo-boo VERY FAST with the rotary burr bit.

To finish the cutout, I used a 1" deburring wheel in the die grinder to further remove small amounts of material.  When I was happy with that, I switched to a 1" polishing wheel to further finish the edge.  Last but not least, I used a 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper to put the finishing touches on the cutout.

It turned out great.  I am really happy with my results.

Once finished with the hole cutout, you put the paper template back on and drill the holes for the retainer strips (3 on each).  Attention to detail is important here so that you don't accidentally drill out the plate nut rivet holes here.  Only drill out the plate nut screw hole.

Then came time to remove the leading edge from the wing so that the rest of the fabrication could be done on the bench.  The picture below is just a small sampling of the aluminum chips resulting from the rotary burr bits.  Like I said, severe case of aluminum dandruff.

Duckworks gives you a rib template that shows you exactly where to put the two holes for mounting the mount plate nuts.  Pretty straightforward here.  I feel like I have already done 1000 plate nuts on this project.  I used the solid rivets supplied with the light kit.  I was able to squeeze these rivets on the outboard holes with no problems.  Squeezing the holes on the inboard rib was another story.  I had to remove the yoke from my pneumatic squeezer, put the yoke through the lightening hole and then reassemble the squeezer.  It only took a couple of minutes to do all that.  Use the 2.5" longeron (flange nose) yoke as it fits in there the best.

Ducksworks sent an addendum page with my instructions as he had changed this light mount plate to be a one piece mount for the RV-7 and 8.  Older lighting kits required you to measure the spacing between the two ribs, drill holes and rivet the two pieces of this mount plate together.  However, he didn't account enough for the bend in the flange and made the brackets to short.  He stated to correct this, set an offset bend in the flange and it would effectively lengthen the mount plate to the correct size (it is approximately 1/4" to short).  Between the bench vice and the seaming pliers I was able to make the appropriate bends.  Didn't turn out to badly...

Here I have the HID lamp mounted to the leading edge and it looks pretty good so far.

This isn't a very good picture, but it shows the light mount screwed the leading edge ribs.  The holes in the light mount are very big so Duckworks uses a washer between the screw and the light mount.  These large holes also give you the "screw slop" necessary to have a little adjustment so that these things can be properly positioned after the plane is together.

I have 6 hours in mounting this landing light.  I haven't touched the plexiglass cover and mounting position of the HID lamp igniter/ballast yet.  This definitely takes more time than the couple of hours the Duck claims on his instruction sheet..