April 3, 2020
More of the same today on the other side elevator. Put the skeleton together, added the skin and final drilled all the holes. It’s starting to feel like a really routine process but there’s a lot of consulting the plans in between each permanent step.
The left counterweight took a little bit of shaving to get a good fit inside the skin and against the ribs. We used the same initial hand drill and finish with the drill press technique as the right side.
A run to the hardware store to fetch an 8 ft 2×8 and some door hinges so we could fashion up the recommended bending tool for the elevators. We put in about 90% of the bend, assuming we would finish up the bends with the smaller hand squeezer once the rivets were in place. Its always easier to add some extra bend into the piece than it is to take it back out. The hand squeezer is also detailed in the plans, and I used 4″ long 2×4’s with some #8 bare copper ground wire to hold the pieces together.
Cheers,
-Kacy
(Total Build Time: 112.0 hrs)