Seems like there are several good ways to do many of these little jobs. What
worked well for me was a 30" long piece of 1/16" welding rod hammered flat at
the end with the flat section filed to a point. Just spin it in your fingers
to drill through the foam, no heat required. I found that it was difficult to
get the angle just right so that it hit the farthest lightening hole at
first. The Mark 2 model has a slight bend about 2" back from the sharpened
tip. Observe the path by looking down the lightening holes and rotate the tip
to point up or down before making contact with the next wall and its
steerable. In the wing cores one can drill chord-wise every 8" or so to
ensure that if one hole gets plugged another is available.
Someone suggested a steel bar with an accurately centered 1/4" hole as a tool
for verifying the alignment of the pins which drive the tailplane. Earl
Folsom from the local EAA chapter made one of these tools for me on a lathe
and it worked very well. The alignment of the pins was up to 1/4" out in 9"
(the length of the tool). They were easily aligned using the tool. Apparently
the pins get mis-aligned by the heat during welding.
Given the amount of mis-alignment, I would have had difficulty withdrawing
the pins after the bushes were bonded if they hadn't been adjusted.
I look forward to hearing about more of these workshop hints, they make life
much easier for us first time builders.
Regards, John A044
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