Time to finally 'put drill to metal', though with the practice kit, not the real kit.

The practice kit has two small projects.  The first one is very simple; you lay out some holes on two small sheets of aluminum, drill and dimple those, then drill and machine countersink holes in a piece of aluminum angle... then rivet it all together. 







One of the critical things you must do when building an airplane out of aluminum is to get rid of any sharp edges, burrs, etc... all these can later turn into cracks as the airplane vibrates... cracks in your metal when you're moving along at 200mph with a couple/three miles of air between you and the ground is generally considered to be bad form. 

When the manufacture cuts the parts out, the process leaves minor imperfections on the edges, for example.  See the photo below.  It's not as easy to see as in real life, but that edge is "rough".  Now take a look at the picture after it, when the part has been deburred and smoothed with emery cloth (a kind of fine sandpaper).



Ah,  smooth as a baby's... well, okay, maybe not THAT smooth.  But notice how the 'ridges' are no longer present.




My sister-in-law, Julie, was down to visit for the weekend, and she and Teresa came out to try their hand at squeezing, back riveting, and countersinking.  Gotta love that SQUEEZER!  That thing's GREAT.  Used it both to squeeze rivets and to dimple skins, and it was so smooth....




Checking our work....




Teresa "doing her thing".  Hope she liked it... there's several thousand more to go!  ;-)


 

"So that's what al-you-min-ee-um smells like!"  No, just kidding... she's not smelling the metal, she's checking out the rivets she squeezed. 




And there's a finished part... the rivets are all flush.  We tried back riveting a few of them, and that went well, too--once I tried the first one and realized the pressure on the regulator needed to be turned down.  A very short burst at 90psi just about flattened the thing.  Turned it down to 60 psi and it went very much better, I do say.  That's what a practice kit is for... now I won't forget to turn the pressure down (or check it, at least) moving between tools, for I've seen what happens when you do forget.



The "other side".




Done with that, I inventoried and "stocked" the rest of the kit.  Nothing was missing.  Van's did a great job packaging this thing.










I used the smaller box, on the shelf, and with the top cut off, to hold some of the smaller parts so I'd be less likely to knock them off the shelf.  I cut a small recess in the front so I could more easily reach in and grab a part I needed:







I've one more practice part to build (a small airfoil section), and then it's "off to the races!".