Final Shop Preparations

I'm officially declaring the airplane factory open for construction! I'm expecting to order the empennage kit next week for a delivery shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday. I'm sure I will continue to make improvements on my work space and tool collection, but I feel ready to start construction.

Although my early plans did not call for upgrading the wiring in the garage, I found a compressor I really liked and at a good price. The only downside, it only runs on 220V service. So that necessitated some new service run in the garage. I hired a friend of a friend (an out of work electrician) to run the line while I was making other shop improvements. I realize this may be a problem when time to move to the hangar, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

While waiting for the 220V service I ran an air hose up and across the ceiling to this retractable reel. I think it turned out very nice. Included in my Cleaveland tool kit was the light hose kit, so between that and the regular air hose hanging from the ceiling that should make working with air tools very nice and comfortable.

Last, but not least I built the recommended C-Frame dimpler tool work surface. I deviated from the plans slightly. I think it called for 0.75"x3.25" support beams, but your standard 1x4 is 0.75"x3.5". So rather than trying to cut a quarter inch of the entire length of my 1x4s, I just went with the 3.5" dimension. In hindsight 1x3s (0.75"x2.5") would have been better. I ended up having to make small stands to sit the C-Frame on to bring it up to the right height.

I couldn't resist the temptation to drill a couple extra holes in my practice project. I dimpled one hole with the C-Frame and the other with my pneumatic squeezer. I then set a flush rivet (AN427AD3-3) in the hole dimpled with the squeezer. I used my back rivet set to drive this rivet. I'm very happy with the quality of the dimples, and I look forward to making a lot more.