January 22, 2005 HOME

Cutting holes for the landing gear mounts started with marking out the hole position from the template suggested in the plans and simply beginning to cut.  The positions are on each side in front of the spar and where the spar passes through the fuselage at each side.

 

Odd as it looks, the plans to call for the hole to overlap the lower spar flange.

 

After the initial hole was cut, I checked for fit.  Nope, no fit yet.  I already knew from the plans that the hole would have to be elongated, but sliding the weldment into place gave me a better idea of how much.

 

   

A die grinder makes easy work of elongating the holes, but you have to be careful not to let it get out of control.  It can cut pretty aggressively against this thin sheet metal.

After a few grind-and-fit sessions, the weldment fit nicely into place.  There are still holes to be drilled through the weldment and doubler plates in the side of the fuselage, but none to drill in the spar.  Those are pre-drilled I'm very happy to say.

The fit was as good as it needed to be (seen below), but I went back and dressed it up.  I won't be seen because the upper gear leg fairing will hide it, but it still needed deburring and I wanted to know that it was done neatly even if it was out of site.  So, it got a little clean up.

 

 

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