My friend Barry called me tonight after he got off work and asked, "Hey, you gonna work on the plane tonight?"  He's been wanting to come over and help.  Barry got his pilot's license a year or so ago and is excited about the idea of this project.  Anyway, I wasn't planning to do anything, but I didn't need any prodding to say "Sure, come on over!"

I'm not into the actual tailkit yet, as I want to build part #2 (an airfoil section) of the practice kit.  I know some builders get their tail kit done in two weeks--whatever!  I won't be able to buy the wing or fuselage kit for a while yet, so I'm content to take my time and enjoy this process.

I gave him the shop tour, then we started looking over the plans and parts.  My phone rang, and another friend, O'Neal, who I've been promising a ride for a long time, said he heard I was building a plane... "Is that true!?!?", he asked.  He was just around the corner, on his way home from work, and wanted to stop in and see for himself.  He was suitably impressed... by the shop, tools, kit, plans, etc.  I think he mostly stood around in a dazed glazed state like "WOW, DUDE... THAT IS SOOOOO COOOOOL."

Anyway, we didn't get started on the practice kit until after he left... we cut out the skin stiffeners from the stock provided, and you have to trim away some of the metal to fabricate the stiffeners to the right shape.  Here Barry is using the scotchbrite wheel to take off a little more metal.  We trimmed about 1/8" of an inch away from the line with the sheers, then use the scotchbrite wheel to get it a little closer.  Finish it off with a vixen file to the line, emery cloth, red scotchbrite pad, and they're silky smooth and nice.

This isn't part of the practice kit... these are the two metal stiffeners that fit inside the rear spar channel of the horizontal stabilizer on the REAL airplane... we had these parts out when O'Neal came over, and showed him on the plans what is required of us in the first steps of the build manual.

You can see in the top of the drawing (Figure 1) the pieces that we had to cut out of the stock that was provided.  The shaded, hatched areas are the parts that we had to "cut away" with the sheers and the scotchbrite wheel.  You can also see three of the finished pieces; Barry was working on #4 when I took this picture.

We removed the protective material from around the rivet holes on the two skins in preparation for final drilling, countersinking, etc.

Here is Barry match-drilling the stiffeners to the bottom skin.  You see sawdust because you drill through the sheets into the worksurface below.  He's not hitting my tabletop on my nice benches, however.  I kept some scrap MDF sheets to sit on top of the benches... those are what he's drilling into.  As you drill each hole, you place a cleco (those aluminum "porcupine" spring clamps) thorugh the hole, and it grabs and holds the two pieces tightly together (and, holds the entire thing to the table, too, as the cleco not only reaches through the piece of work, but into the hole formed by drilling into the table surface).

Barry got to use the pneumatic squeezer to dimple a few of the holes (we could have done them all with the C-frame, but I wanted him to get to try the squeezer).  However, most of the holes on the skins are too far back to be reached by a squeezer, so you must use this C-frame dimpler.  I have yet to build a recessed table surface with foam / carpet to protect the skins while using the C-frame, but I didn't need it for pieces of metal this small.  I'll build that, though, before I start dimpling real skins with this thing.

When you use the pneumatic squeezer to dimple, Avery recommends putting the male die in the top set; on the C-frame, the male die goes in the bottom set.  And so it was that I dimpled MY row of holes the wrong way... and THAT's why it's called a practice kit!  I got to practice flattening out the wrong dimples and re-dimpling the correct direction!

I'm going to save the rest of the practice kit for this weekend when Barry and / or my other friend Gerardo (who seriously wants to buy a share of the plane, but I'm not sure I'm ready for that!!  I feel selfish all of a sudden!) can be here to help.