Prep Work for the Panel Base

It's not just that this Influenza virus is still bothering me (it's just a week into it), no, it's also one of these invisible days. You feel like you worked on a lot of things, and they all needed their fair amount of attention and diligence but at the end of the day you can hardly see that you made any progress.
I'm on page 29-04 and preparing all the parts that will soon be combined to build the panel base. One of those little parts is made from aluminum angle and will later get attached to the gas strut that will hold the canopy. There are two identical parts to build from stock angle that Van's in there immeasurable wisdom have already cut to some 2" length that now has to be reduced to 1 5/8". Why they didn't cut to the required length to begin with when they cut it anyway will never come to light, I'm afraid.

I read ahead in Dave's Schmetterling Blog, so I knew that I had to take extra care not to mess up the drilling of these angles. For one because there's no spare piece in the kit and I would have to order replacements from Van's and wait for them to arrive, and then also because it's easy to drill along and then drift from the punched mark and ruin the piece in a heartbeat. So I followed Dave's advise not to drill the center 1/4" hole in one step but to drill a #40 pilot hole first.


Then I put the 1/4" drill bit in and final drilled the center hole on the drill press.


One angle piece was perfect the other one showed a slight drift in the center hole. I clecoed both pieces on their canopy ribs and also clecoed on the nutplate and drove a bolt in each one. The slight drift didn't matter. So, I have to say: Thank You, Dave!

Finally I countersunk the rivet attach holes and ended up with the final pieces.


I continued pulling parts for the panel base, deburring them, dimpling and counter-sinking the nutplate attach holes on all of them and when I was in the last steps before I wanted to quit anyway, it happened! I had just clecoed the gas strut angles and the hinge angles to the canopy ribs and was final drilling the nutplate bolt holes to 1/4" when I dropped any necessary caution and held the piece in my hand while drilling through the center hole. The best position for my hand to support it there was with the palm of my hand right behind the hole. DUH!


Not that the build hadn't drawn blood before, but not at that level of laceration combined with that much stupidity. Oh well, I was about done anyway because after deburring the parts, which I certainly did, they now have to get prepped and primed before I can rivet them together. Considering the chance that on a day like this where I try to drill a hole in my hand, I might just as well spray myself with the primer I postponed this activity till some other time.