Howdy,
Been pluggin' away but not posting much. Got some work done this week on this tedious bird.
I started on the battery tray mount for under the removable nose cone. I've got to ship this baby in a crate, so I need it to fit inside the dimensions of plywood at Lowes (96"), so I opted to make the tray itself also removable. I built some mounts and hysoled them into the cone and against the former. I put a piece of wood against it to get an idea of what the tray itself would look like.
I didn't want to glue the missile rails on, either, so I glued some 3/8" dowel that I want to drill partway through for the 'bracket', and I already epoxied some hard points into the tip under the tip cap.
I got the nose gear lift strut mount done and am grinding on the standoffs for the door/cover. Double-sided tape trial-and-error.
One of the steps is to drill through the inside-side of the door hinge in six places (for micro screws). Then you come on the outside with a bullet-shaped or conical grinding wheel and countersink the hole for the screw head. If you get it just right, the screw will sit flush with the skin. There a total of 114 screws to do this step with. Thus my 'tedious' comment.
The last two pics show the sanded-down rail brackets and the tacked-on battery tray. My customer will modify it to his liking (cut slots for straps or use velcro, etc.)
Starting to look like a jet?
