More fitting the landing gear weldments - 5 hours

Before I get the holes cut complete in the floor skins. I think it best to get the scallops for the weldments cut in the F-776 and F-704 centre section flange first.This will allow me to easily "dial-in" the fit for the backside of the weldments.

It was very easy to extract the 7/16" bolts holding the centre section allowing the weldments to be test fit.

I could then see just how much material needs to be removed for the landing gear.


I then drew some reference lines as a guide (Remember, I have little confidence in the paper template at this point).
I then place the paper template on and traced the line in a different color pen. I could see how close my reference lines were to the template. The lines matched up in terms of left-right....however according to the template...I need to remove a lot of material to get the weldment placed far aft.
In fact...the scallop looks like it has to be taken back almost to the rivet countersink.

I dug out my round files and dremel tool and went to work. Grind, check fit, grind, check fit. again and again. It took quite some time, but the fit is excellent.

Now having faith that my template is shy of what I needed to cut. The other side was cut and shaped very quickly.