There's an awful lot of woodworking for an all metal plane...

Today was a good day in the shop. We spent the morning doing something that we should've done a year ago when we built the 904 bulkheads (that's the place where the wings attach). We had to make some spacers that were precisely 1 17/16". Luckily I bought a planer about 4 years ago. Unluckily, it was still in the box. Once we cut some 3/4" MDF and glued it together we then set about putting the planer together. It was pretty straightforward and I must say that I'm pretty impressed with the Rigid planer (I bought it when I was living in the states and paid about 50% of the price I would've paid in Canada -- who could pass up that deal?!?)

Once that was done I cut the spacer blocks and drilled them out. We'll need them when we bolt the bulkheads together and get them setup for match-drilling.

While I was doing woodwork, Darren was concentrating on cutting some holes and getting the parts setup for the steps. The instructions weren't the best so it took some head scratching and figuring but it's pretty much ready to go.

That's where we ended today but we're going to try to get some more work in on Monday.

 

Rough pieces after being cut out.

 

After final manufacturing.

A close up of some of our work.

 

Scott at work creating the required spacer blocks.

 

The planer