Tonight I spent a couple hours fitting the tail wheel spring mount in the fuse. It is not fun. 

The template fits nicely, I then transferred the cutout to the metal and began by drilling the curved part using a unibit. I then proceeded to cut the straighter part using some snips and got it to roughly the right shape. A lot of filing and dremelling got it down to the final shape. 

Still not perfect, but I will finalize it as I fit the mount. Tomorrow I’ll continue fitting the mount and measuring and then hopefully drill the mounting bolt holes. My goal is to have the tailcone fully riveted by the end of the weekend. Cheers! 

This update is for yesterday and today. 

I began by finally getting the fuse up on the rotisserie. It was quite the effort but totally worth it. 

It’s about 2ft higher off the ground and much easier to work on. Rotating it to the orientation I need will be extremely valuable. 

I followed this by drilling and fitting the flap weldment and bearing blocks. 

The bearing blocks were tougher to drill than I had expected but it all fits and motion is smooth. 

I then installed the two static ports on either side of the fuse, they are just two pop rivets drilled out. They will be glued in place and plumbed along with the pitot tube plumbing. 

Today I decided to finish up the second seatback. I began by utilizing my new bandsaw to cut he angle stock to size. It had already paid for itself in time savings and no headaches. 

Cutting the notches took me more than an hour last time (using the wrong tool sucks) as well as making nice even angles. I then used my scotchbrite wheel to buff and smooth everything out. 

For the FAA as proof I’m the one building! 🙂 and after about 3 hours I have my pilots seat! 

After this photo was taken I drilled all the holes to #30 and then disassembled everything in prep for priming and riveting. But that’s for tomorrow! 

Today I got out the parts for the rudder pedal assembly. I’m only going with pilot side brakes so I only had to deal with one set of parts.

I started by getting out the brake pedal plates and assorted parts. I just got a bench top bandsaw which made life SO MUCH BETTER! I immediately cut the angle stock to size. 

I then drilled the angle stock to the plates based on the prepunched holes, deburred and primed all the parts. I also decided on painting the pedals a satin black. I think the gold rivets and black make for a nice contrast. 

Here are the finished parts. I’m mostly happy with them, but I’m going to go with it. 

Once the pedals were finished I began assembly to the rudder weldment. 

Here’s the pedal installed before I attached the master cylinders. These are held on by two AN3 bolts and castle nuts with cotter pins. 

I couldn’t resist test fitting them in the fuse. Tomorrow I will continue installation and will most likely make several mounting points for adjustable pedal location. I also routed the rudder cables through the fuse but didn’t get a picture of it.