One small task that I have been putting off for a while is fabricating a new F-668 space for the one that I lost last summer when the 3M wheel decided to take the small part I was buffing on a ride. (I was working on the driveway and the piece must have launched about 30' in the air and landed in the landscape bed...never to be seen from again. I have 2 perfect forward spacers, 1 rear spacer nearly finished but not drilled. and 1 spacer I have to make from scratch.
Being that I have 1 spacer that is a perfect template, creating the 2nd spacer was super quick. Next...I need to start working on locating the bolt holes in the aft spacers for an AN4 bolt. The real pain working with these is getting them to fit up inside the lip of the aft canopy decks. The 3D printer comes to the rescue as I made a simple little tool. I can glue the spacer to the tool and then get the spacer up into the canopy deck to check hole alignments.
This allowed easy checks for the hole positioning on canopy decks with the aft spacers and I could easily transfer the #40 pilot holes in the roll bar to the aft spacers. Next I opened up the holes in the aft spacers to 1/4" for the AN4 bolts.
Next, I then made a few sets of tools that would allow me to confirm the positioning of the #40 holes in the aft canopy deck. The tool I designed would allow me to get in under the lip, sit right against the fuselage and the longeron and I could have a #40 hole on the top that would (or should) line up perfectly with the #40 hole in the canopy deck for the roll Bar.
I made a bunch of these tools with various hole sizes so I could step up the hole from #40, #30, #19, 3/16", and 1/4". Checking the holes each time I drilled up a size. This took some time to do, but it made the outcome easy... and perfect. All holes, ended up as close as possible to the longerons without nicking them.
