Tie Downs

Tonight I started fabbing the tie down assembly.  I started by cutting the inserts with my new bandsaw.  Having a bandsaw makes life so much easier.  A lot of other people said "don't wait, get a bandsaw" and I waited, and now will repeat their sentiments.  Once I realized I could get a little one for just shy of $110, I jumped on it.

Here are the inserts sitting on the main spar

And now pinched under the tie down.

Next, I drilled one hole in the tie down using the measurements from the blueprint, and then attached it, using the spar as a guide for the other 3 holes.  Once those were drilled, I bolted it and started drilling the next four holes that go through the little spacers.

I don't have many pictures for the next part because it was extremely frustrating.  You have to drill the holes through the tie down and the spacers for the rivets for the nutplate.  This was difficult to do because it was hard to clamp the nutplate to the assembly.  I ended up using channel locks and then clecoing the first hole, and then drilling the second, but one of my tie downs has a nutplate that isn't lined up perfectly vertically.

Next, all that was left was to tap the end ( I tapped the wrong end, so I had to tap it twice), and then prime and assemble!

As a note, the same steps were followed for both wings.