Tailcone - 1

I realize it's been a couple of weeks, but I haven't been goofing off- just really busy. I have been working on the tailcone, but the work hasn't been terribly exciting. A LOT of surface preparation. I started with the many skins and prep includes edging and deburring, Each of the skins are about 9-feet long, so plenty of surface area that requires work and attention. Here are some examples.

 Not a very good picture below. I am trying to illustrate an edge bend. I'm using a device that looks like a hockey puck with two rollers. You roll the device along the edge with just a little inward bend. This will help all the skins fit together later in assembly, or so goes the theory.

 After I completed the main skins it was onto the small assemblies like the tail tie down bracket.  This is actually my second bracket. I messed up on the first attempt and had to order a replacement. I was rushing and made some dumb mistakes. Replacement cost me $5.40 plus shipping, but I gained some good lessons-learned. The little notch on the side is for a bulkhead feedthru. And the radiused courner- don't know what that is for but should find out soon.

Then it's a matter of match drilling a couple of 1/8 holes, template provided, and then using a 1/4 inch drill to create the proper radius. Then mark and cut away.

Then in the other end of the bracket it is necessary to cut off material, 1-inch from the end of the bracket, angled down towards the mounting surface. The reason this is bracket number two is because I made my cut on the 1-inch line not leaving myself enough room to file smooth. Plus I used a power grinder to smooth the surface. Lesson 1- aluminum is very soft.....comes off quickly!!! I need to stop working when the brain stops computing....step away from grinder!!

Then it was time to tap 3/8 - 16 threads. The instructions say 1-inch deep, but I followed the advice of some other builders and went to a depth of 1.5 inches. I marked the drill as reference.

The Tap 3/8- 16

 The tap at work!

 The result!

 And then the finished part. I enjoyed this part- the drilling, cutting, filing, shaping and finally tapped. Feels like I'm building an airplane. And I'm learning!

 No bad!

Then it was into the smaller piece-parts like bulkheads, stiffners, mount assemblies. So, deburring, sanding, counter-sinking and dimpling. Sound familar?

Finalling started to prime some of the smaller parts. I'll have to give some thought to priming the skins. No more spray cans for the skins. But that will be a project for next week!

All of the above work was performed in roughly 16 hours, which I believe brings the total time on the project to 101 hours. Getting close to the fun part. Putting all these pieces together. Oh by the way- the wings are scheduled to ship from Van's on 5/15/2013. We'll see how my timing works!