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[November 28, 2006]


Another rockin' night in the shop. I drilled the joint plate on the right leading edge. This took a lot of checking. After every hole, I checked that the joiner and the rib weren't moving. In the end it turned out great. Next was to drill the tie down hole. Mine was 1/8" towards the tip and 1/8" towards the aft of where Van's prepunched hole was. I drilled out a #30 hole where I marked the tie down hole center, which formed a figure 8 with the pre-existing hole. Then I used a unibit in my cordless drill on its lowest speed. This worked really well because I could direct where the unibit was drilling. After each notch, I re-evaluated where the hole alignment was. I got it lined up dead nuts! I only got it as big as the 3/8" thread for now. I am still playing with how I am going to mount the tiedowns from Van's.

With the right leading edge done, I moved onto the left one. This flew by and I got as far as drilling the joiner plate tonight. I also didn't match drill any of the leading edge to the ribs or spar. Van's indicated you need to match drill it to the ribs, but doesn't mention the spar. I might give them a call tomorrow to see what the word is.

The leading edge joiner drilled in place. Once I got it in, I started on the top aft and worked myself around to the bottom aft. I got excellent results, with only a very slight gap in the very front.


You can see to the lower left of the prepunched hole where I needed to drill out the tiedown hole.


This was my first hole with a #30 bit.


I worked the figure 8 with some files first, then with the unibit to get this perfectly snug fit. I will definitely have to make this bigger, but I need to go to the aviation department at Home Depot to figure out how to put Van's tiedown eye on here with some style.


The left leading edge almost done.

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Last Modified: August 13, 2023