17 MAR 09 - Tie-Down and Spacer Fabrication - 4.0 Hours
The W-726 tie-down spacers are fabricated
from bar stock. I discovered that the smallest diameter my fly-cutter would do is
2", so I purchased a 1" hole saw from Home Depot. This did a nice job cutting the
hole, but I found that after sanding smooth and finishing with the Scotch-brite
wheel, the dimension of the hole was more like 1 1/16". To produce a hole 1" in
diameter after finishing, you may want to set your fly-cutter or hole saw to 7/8"
or so.
Obviously these plans are not full scale, they are the preview plans from the instruction
book.
After producing the spacers, I sanded the tie downs to size. Not much sanding was
needed to get the correct dimension.
After edge finishing the tie-downs, I drilled the locating hole in accordance with
the plans, clamped the tie-downs and spacers to the spars, and drilled everything.
Once the holes were drilled, I clamped the tie downs and spacers together and using
the nutplates as a guide, I drilled the holes for the nutplates. The rivets for
these nutplates do not go through the spar (the backside of the spacers get countersunk
for flush rivets).
Here are the finished tie-downs and spacers. I still have to purchase a tap kit
for the actual tie-downs (which are not included in the kit, by the way).
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