Saturday, February 9, 2019

Rebuilding F-711 and F-712 bulkheads - 4 hours

I have to laugh now. I'm just making silly mistake after silly mistake. I cut the first F-111C horizontal attach bar too sort. I had 11 3/4" on my brain and not the required 14 3/4"/. So dumb.
Well, I'll forge on with making one F-711C horizontal stabilizer attach bars.

Other than this morning, nothing when awry and things turned out nicely. As usual I started drilling with the palm drill to get a pilot hole in the correct location but finished drilling on the drill press.

I'll trim the center material on F-711 once I get another piece of flat bar to make the second F-711C.
I moved on to the F-712 bulkhead. I measured up, cut and drilled the AEX tie down bar. I placed the bar in the vice and tapped the threads. By the way I use WD-40 for cutting threads on aluminum. I apply liberally and go slow. Quarter turn forward, back an eighth, over and over till I advanced the tap just past 1-1/4"