F-706, F-707, and F-708 Bulkheads Started (1/5/12)

3.0 Hours –

I couldn’t resist drilling the F-661EF flap actuator bearing blocks even though I don’t have the correct drill size yet.  The closest drill I had to a #10 was a #12, so I chucked it into the drill press, clamped the block into place and drilled.  The plastic was, of course, easy to drill, and I was actually surprised when I test fit a bolt and found that you really do have to go up in drill size when working with plastic.  So, I’ll have to enlarge the hole once I get the #10 bit, but that’s easy.  I’ll also wait until I have the other bit before drilling the second hole.

I started drilling the flap bearing blocks even though I don't have the right size bit. Clamped to the drill press with a piece of angle, the hole came out nice and straight.

Next, it was time to move on to some other bulkheads, so I had to spend some time rearranging the plans.  I have so many large plans sheets now that rearranging them can take some time.  It didn’t help that the drawings for the F-706, -707, and -708 bulkheads are split between two sheets.

After organizing the plans, I had figured out what parts I needed and set out on a search through the parts crate.  After a bit of searching, I found everything I needed and got to work.  The first thing I did was to locate and enlarge all the snap bushing holes for the rudder cables, wiring, and static system.  Once these were all drilled, I started doing the finishing work on the bulkhead parts.  These parts are in pretty rough shape out of the box.  They are made from thin aluminum and they are severely warped in areas due to the way they are formed at the factory.  Because of this, the bulkheads are going to take a lot of fluting to get them straight again.  For today, I only finished the F-708 bulkhead components.

The raw parts for the F-706, 707, and 708 bulkheads are pretty rough looking...definitely going to have to prime these.

The bulkhead components are fairly warped from the bending process...time to do some fluting.

After fluting, the bulkheads look much better. There are still not perfect, but better.