410 hours on the hobbs - Replacement ribs and spar arrived

Finally got my replacement E702, E703, and E704 replacement parts from Vans yesterday. I ended up having to re-do about a half a page of prep steps in order to get everything back to where it was before the riveting blunder described in my previous post. When the parts arrived, they were in a very thick cardboard tube. I removed the spar only to find that the flange on the tip of the spar had been badly bent over during shipping. Upon close inspection, and after bending the flange back into place, it looked like the rivet holes were not compromised, and the skin was not creased in any way, so I was able to flatten everything back out with the rivet gun, a flush set, and a back rivet plate. I was beginning to think that this elevator is becoming a bad omen for some reason, but elected to try to push through it and keep working on it.

I also managed to remove the former E703 tip rib from the former messed up spar. Unfortunately the rivet holes where very badly mangled after attempting to set the rivets with a flange that had become badly deformed after screwing up the E704 counterbalance rib (see previous post). I tried to take my rivet gun with the mushroom flush set and lightly bang out the mangled metal around each hole using a back rivet plate, which seemed to work OK, but the rivet holes still appeared to be a bit oblong from attempting to set the rivet in a badly bent flange. I had originally thought I might be able to re-use the tip rib so that I would have less fabrication to do on new parts, but that turned out not to be the case.

Here is a list of all the things I have done in the past two evenings to get all three parts back to the state where I am ready to attempt riveting again:

1. Flute both ribs and straighten the edges with my edge bending tool. I found another tip on a builder web site after searching VAF that reminded me that the real purpose of fluting these two ribs is to make absolutely certain that the webs of both ribs are flush with each other with no gaps. This makes attaching the E713 counterbalance skin a much easier task, since th holes line up pretty well if the ribs  both fit together properly.
2. Remount the E714 lead counterweight so that I could re-drill the bolt holes in the forward flanges of each rib. With the bolt holes already in the counterbalance skin and the lead counterweight, I was able to take a number 10 drill bit and lightly mark the forward flange of each rib by turning the bit by hand. Then I disassembled the rib assembly and step drilled the holes in each rib flange to the proper size using the same technique described in earlier posts when I originally performed the counterweight preparation steps. These new holes actually turned out much better than the previous holes. It's much easier to mark the flange when the holes in the E713 counterbalance skin and the E714 lead counterweight have already been drilled. The new holes ended up much closer to the center of the flange this time, so that was a good thing.
3. Match drilled the rivet holes in each rib web attaching the E703 and E704 ribs together. Also match drilled the flange rivet holes in both ribs. (You know, the ones that totally screwed up when attempting to rivet them previously).
4. Clecoed the entire elevator frame to the elevator skin and match drilled all the remaining spar-to-skin attach holes, including drilling the 4 holes that are not predrilled on the ends of the E703 tip rib. Match drilled the counterbalance skin holes to the holes in both ribs.
5. Disassembled everything, deburred all the holes in the ribs and the spar, and dimpled them.
6. Countersunk the 4 holes on the inboard section of the spar that attach the E705 root rib to the back of the spar.

Now I just need to finish edge deburring the parts, and clean, prep, and prime them, and I will be back where I was a week ago, supposedly ready to rivet. I will tell you that it was not fun trying to cleco and match drill the new frame parts to a skin adn other parts that had already been dimpled. I am a little concerned that the holes and dimples may not line up as well as they did before, but I have done this sort of thing in the past and not had any problems with the parts fitting together correctly, so we shall see....

I went on VAF in search of info about how others had tackled the end rib riveting problems. Not surprisingly,  I found many others that have had similar problems with this part of the assembly going back as far as 2005. Most were saying that the solution is to hand squeeze these rib flange rivets, and to use the tip of riveting the flange of the E704 rib first, followed by the E703 rib, before attaching the two ribs together via the rivets in the webs of each rib. Van's instructions still say to attach both ribs together first, and then attach the whole assembly and rivet the flanges to the spar, which just does not work out if you try to do it that way. The problem is that while most were describing using the workaround, I could not find any pics of the yoke, rivet sets, and positioning they used to set thse rivets. Then I finally found one. You need to use a flange yoke, a 1/8 inch x 3/8 inch AN 470 round head rivet set, and a 1/2 inch x 3/8 inch flat rivet set on the other end. It is always a little harder to squeeze 1/8 inch rivets with a hand squeezer, but it can be done, and you have much better control with the hand squeezer. You have to leave the tip rib off when you set the flange rivets for the counterbalance rib, because the thickness of the squeezer prevents you from being able to get the round headed set over the head of the rivet due to lack of clearancefrom the tip rib. All you have to do is flex the counterweight rib out of the way just a bit, adn you can set the rivets correctly.

I bet I could convince Vans to give me job where my sole responsibility would be to evaluate and identify all of the latest build issues from their current set of plans for every airplane kit that they provide, determine the work arounds that are being used to correct the problems, and update all of the plans for each aircraft to incorporate the new and better building techniques. The fact that they seem to have no interest in receiving this info and making the changes to their aging sets of plans really pisses me off.

Anyway, I digress. For the record, I wanted to include some "before" pics of the fit of the flanges for both tip ribs against the spar before I rivet them together. If you compare these to the pics at the end of the previous post, you will see just how messed up the flanges of both of the ribs are. The way they appear in these next pics is exactly the way they should look after the flange rivets are set:

Notice that there are NO gaps in between the flanges in the above pics. Everything is nice and flush. Should be ready to try this again tomorrow, after verifying the correct rivet lengths, ensuring the parts are clamped tightly to the table, grinding down my yoke just a bit more, and borrow another set of hands to help hold the rib out of the way. Maybe this time it will work out......MAYBE.

389 hours on the hobbs - left elevator and trim tab progress today

Picked up my tools from the chapter 301 auction held recently. Short story about this is that a member of the chapter passed away recently after a losing bout with cancer, and he essentially donated his hangar and it's contents at KFTG to the chapter. After resolving some legal issues, including the sale of his almost completed T-51 kit to a bloke in Australia, a large assortment of tools remained, and these were auctioned off to chapter members by email. This was the first time I had ever done an auction via email, but it was rather fun.

I ended up with a set of nut drivers, 3 impact wrenches, one air drill, and an assortment if impact sockets and other odds and ends. They basically sorted the tools in the drawers of an absolutely humungous tool chest, took photos, sent them to the bidders, and started the auction which ran for about 2 weeks. The tool chest was also auctioned off to the tune of about $450.00.

Thanks Jack for the opportunity to take care of your tools - rest in peace and I won't let ya down. I almost bit on buying the T-51, which is a kit version of a P-51 fighter, but I was already into my own project and did not want to derail that effort. Sad thing is, he was almost finished with it - even had a Corvette engine ready to put in it. Whole thing went for about $35,000.00.

As for the build - I spent time on the trim tab today. Got the skin bent and primed up, and drilled the holes for the hinge on the trim tab side. Also put the lead counterweight back on the drill press after verifying that the drill bit chuck and my work table were at prefect 90 degree angles to each other. Funny thing about that is that one of the lead plugs I had poured into one of the holes the other day was completely pushed out during the drilling, and the other came out as I was final drilling the hole in the E713 counterbalance skin. Oh well, that means my original holes were close enough I guess.The good news is that everything came out OK this time, but I still need to finish match drilling all the holes in the new E704 part. I also had to rebend the flanges to 90 degrees, and flute it just a bit to straighten it out.

All primed up

We pause this trim tab episode momentarily for a trip back to the tip rib assembly. Here is the problem I spoke of in previous posts. The hole on the right is much too close to the bend in the flange. This is the 704 counter balance rib that I had to replace with a new one.

Next is a side view of the trim tab after the bend, with the forward TT spar clecoed in place. As far as I can tell from doing some preliminary fitting to the elevator, everything should line up perfect if I get the hinge placement correct:

Next are the rivet lines I drew on the piano hinge that will attach the trim tab to the elevator. After much research over the past few days, I resolved that the solution to the rivet hole location problem where there would not be enough edge distance if you follow the 1/4 inch measurement in the plans, was to keep the 6/32 edge distance by measuring from the outside edge of the hinge. As it turned out, when I drew the lines per the measurements I just mentioned, the rivet line is pretty much centered in the main part of the hinge flange, just as it should be, and there is also sufficient edge distance for the rivets. Pics are of lines drawn on both sides:

My research on other builder sites regarding the hinge issues revealed so many little tips and tricks to ensure that this gets done correctly, that I will list most of them here to hopefully benefit future builders.

1. Van's drawings showing the hinge assembly are confusing. One drawing seems to show the eyes of the hinges facing upward toward the top of the skin, while others show the hinge eyes facing downward. DOWNWARD is the correct placement. This allows you to adjust the placement of the hinge flange on the elevator side to ensure proper alignment of the trim tab with the elevator, without the eyes getting in the way of the edges of the skin. It also keeps the hinge line flush with the skin and not sticking up into the slip stream, thereby reducing drag.

2. When drilling the holes in the hinge, you have to mark a line, clamp the hinge to the skin and spar under the prepunched holes, and drill complete holes in the hinge flange - they are NOT prepunched. Also make certain that you DO NOT dimple or countersink the holes in the hinge. The dimples and countersinks are in the spar and the skin - NOT in the hinge. Upper skin gets dimples, the top of the spar gets countersunk, and the hinge just gets drilled with a hole to accept the remaining rivet shank.

3. After drawing your reference lines in the hinge flange, remove the piano hinge pin and separate the hinge halves. I use a 3/32 " punch pin for this.Then clamp the hinge half in place lining up the previously drawn reference line and prepunched holes in the skin as a guide.

4. When riveting the hinge flange, remember to put the piano hinge back onto the eyelets (just the pin and not the other half of the hinge). This helps keep the eyelets from bending or distorting during riveting, which may cause binding when you insert the pin and attach the other half of the hinge.

5. Another tip during riveting is to install the other half of the hinge with the hinge pin, and place the other half of the hinge at 90 degrees to the half that you are riveting to provide even more rigidity during riveting.

6. When trimming the end of the hinge on the inboard side of the trim tab, do NOT trim the hinge pin - only the flanges. Leave the pin at it's original length so you can form the bend or at least have something additional to grab on to to remove and insert the pin easily.

Here is the drilled hinge on the trim tab side in progress and almost complete. Use as many cleco clamps as necessary to keep the hinge from moving while drilling the holes. Start at one end of the hinge and drill each hole in sequence until you reach the other end, to ensure that there are no sags in the hinge line. Van's wants the hinge to be placed laterally so that the outboard edge of the hinge is 3/8" from the nearest hole on that side:

And here is the view from the front side of the trim tab after the hinge line has been drilled. All my holes came out right were I expected - centered on each line - both top and bottom. Be sure to keep your drill straight. You have to be patient and have a steady hand because it takes several seconds for the hole to be drilled through the hinge material - even with a sharp drill bit and my super duper and super expensive Sioux air drill running at full speed. Use the mirror technique by aligning the drill bit with its reflection in the alclad trim tab skin - works like a charm every time for drilling straight holes. Let the drill bit do the cutting and don't force it.

And here is the lead counterweight installed in the tip rib assembly. The bolt has been inserted on both sides (only one side showing in this pic). Boy am I glad that is almost over. I say almost because I still need to the following things before it is ready for the next step:
- match drill the 703 to 704 attach holes
- Match drill the 704 flange attach holes to the E702 forward spar
- Dimple the E713 counterbalance skin holes after making sure that they are sized properly and deburred well to prevent cracking when the huge number 10 dimple die is used to make the dimples.
- Countersink the E714 lead counterweight to accept the dimples from the E713 skin

Then I can finally attach everyting to the foward spar so I can final drill the remaining holes in the elevator skin.

Remember - this counterweight does NOT get trimmed like the one on the right side due to the weight differences with the added spar, trim reinforcement brackets, and trim tab assembly all aft of the elevator hinge line. This requires more weight to counter everything added to the left elevator, so you do NOT trim anything from this counterweight.

This shows a much better placement of the screw on the E704 rib side. Still not centered in the flange, but good enough to accept the washer and the nut that will snug it down tight.

Just to recap what I did to fix the problem:
- Filled the holes in the lead counterweight so I could re-drill them after getting a new E704 rib from Van's.
- Attached the new E704 rib to the existing E703 tip rib. I kept the same tip rib since everything seemed to be Ok on that side.
- Attached the counterbalance skin and the counterweight to the tip rib assembly, marked the lead counterweight using the holes on the front side of the E713 with a sharpee, disassembled everything, and step drilled the counterweight on the drill press  - just as I had done before.
- reassembled the counterweight and tip rib/counterbalance skin, and drilled the holes in E713 to size to match the holes in the counterweight. (Drill to Number 12 initially, but will end up being number 10 for the dimple die.) Used my hand held air drill for this part.Tried my best to keep a straight line....
- Verified the hole on the forward flange of the tip rib side aligned with the hole in the counterweight and the counterbalance skin - it did (Whew! was worried about that one)
- Took my number 12 drill bit on the E704 side, slid it through the E713 skin, through the lead counterweight until I felt is stop against the forward flange of the E704 rib. I did not run the drill while doing this - just inserted the bit to verify it would travel all the way up to the point of hitting the solid flange of the new rib.
 - Then I carefully aligned the drill bit - hedging a bit more with pressure toward the outer edge of the rib flange, and HAND TURNED the drill bit to start a reference hole in the flange, being careful NOT to drill all the way through the metal
- Disassembled the counterweight adn ribs one more time, found the mark on the E704 rib, verified that it appeared to be in the correct place to provide a hole with sufficient clearance for the screw, washer,and nut, and finished drill the hole in the rib flange.
- Reassembled everything again to verify that the screws, washers, and nuts on both sides will attach correctly.
 - Now I just ahve to take it all apart again to countersink the holes in the counterweight for the E713 dimples, which also have to be done. Then I put it all back together again, minus the counterweight, so I can attach it to the E702 spar and the skin.

WHAT A PAIN IN THE ASS THIS IS!

Lastly, back to the trim tab. Started measuring for the riblets using the practice kit ribs I got from Mike Rettig a while back.

Here is the outboard or smaller end of the trim tab - will have to fill the areas with the chipped primer - interesting. A very small riblet goes in this end.

Next is a pic of the practice kit rib. I will use 2 of these and the end of a 703 tip rib to make all the necessary riblets.

Next is a pic of some dimesions that I had ruffed out. I will be changing these slightly after reviewing the pics on Steve Riffe's log. The forward spar of the trim tab is a Z shape, and what you end up doing is trimming these riblets so that the rib web coveras as much of the tip area as possible, while making recesses in the flanges of the riblets to ensure clearance from the trim tab spar flanges.

Steves riblet seems to be a bit longer than the dimension I drew up. It is very close to a tooling hole, so I need to be careful about where to cut the tip off.

Next steps for tomorrow, which will finish up my vacation and holiday time off from work - dimple and countersink the spars, fabricate the riblets and drill the rivet holes, and maybe prime all the parts since the weather will finally be somewhat warm again tomorrow. The last part of the left elevator assembly involves aligning the trim tab, drilling the elevator side of the hinge, and then working on the trim servo mounting brackings and nut plates. Then I still have to roll the leading edges....UGHHHH. It just goes on and on and on.......

Have to stay focused on this to get it done, but I really, really, really want to get started on my Wings.

385 hours on the hobbs - learned how to smelt lead today

I decided to try to fill the two previous drilled holes in my lead counterweight so I could start over and redrill them after my replacement parts arrive from Vans hopefully tomorrow. To do this I had to melt some lead and pour it back into the holes that I drilled the other night.

My wife's side of the family always has Thanksgiving te week prior to the official holiday, and this year it was at my house. So lucky for me this meant that I had my pick of tin cans to choose from for melting the lead. I chose a small can of olives, washed it clean, dried it thoroughly, and then pondered how best to try to accomplish this, since I had never done anything like this before.

I started by stripping off the paper around the can, then bending a pour spout in the top of the can so that I could direct the molten lead to the correct point and not make a total mess. Then I tried inserting some of the drill strands that I had saved from the first counterweight that I fabricated for the right elevator. I put the scraps in the can, the can in a pot, and the pot on the stove, and turned on the heat. This did not work so well.The lead only half melted and would not get to a state where it could be poured.

I guess I should cover the other part of the preparation. I wrapped aluminum foil around the counterweight, leaving only the holes on one side exposed where the molten lead would be poured. I then took one of my dogs water bowls, filled it with dirt, and placed the couterweight inside the bowl on the dirt. This is supposed to act as a foundation for the mold, and also to help disperse the heat. I then took a set of locking pliers, donned some heavy leather work gloves, and attached the locking pliers to the edge of the can on the opposite side of the pour spout.

So now I had to figure out what to use to heat the lead? I also figured that I was going to need a bit more lead than just the scraps that I had collected. So I remembered that I a propane welding/soldering torch, and I also remembered that I still had the large slab of lead that was trimmed away from the right side counterweight. So I threw the slab in the can adn lit the torch and started heating things up. This did the trick. The lead melted after a minute or so of direct heat on the bottom of the can. I quickly poured it on the counterweight in the dog dish. Man it comes out fast!. So I had to do some trimming to remove the excess, but all that ook was a coping saw and a few cuts to break it free.

Now my only concern is that the lead has definitely filled the old holes, but it does not seem like it attached itself to the existing lead that surrounded the holes. So in essence all I may have done is to pour a couple of plugs to fill each of the holes, and I am not sure how this will work out when I try to redrill them. Oh well, I guess I wil find out - hopefully tomorrow. If it does not work, then my options are to make a mold of the entire counterweight and repour the whole thing, or order a new counterweight for 17 bucks plus a large amount for shipping due to the weight.

I spent other time today working on the parts for the frame and studying the plans for the Wings. Match drilled the elevator ribs to the spars, and countersunk the designated rivet holes per the plans. Will make final decisions/measurements for the Wing jig tomorrow.

384 hours on the hobbs - another step forward and two steps back...

If it was summer time in Colorado, perhaps having these difficulties would not matter so much to me. But when you have to fight the cold and the wind outside, it just makes these little dips in the road that much harder to take. The step forward was bending the trailing edge of the left elevator yesterday - very much a non-event, and everything turned out as expected. Dare I say I think I have the hang of bending trailing edges now. Unless there is any bending that takes place during the fuselage construction (Longerons I think), I think that the only things left to bend are the TEs of both ailerons during the Wing construction.

Here is the elevator skin in the bending brake, with the forward spar clecoed and clamped in place to serve as a reference for when the bend has gone far enough.

I clamped the center portion of the spar to the skin since you cannot get clecoes in the rivet holes in that area because the web on the spar is not wide or tall enough to fit clecoes inside the flanges.

I am including this next pic as a "Don't do this" photo when you bend your trailing edges. Do NOT place the end ribs on either end of the spar prior to bending the trailing edge. I did remove this rib prior to bending. I only put it there to help stabilize the placement of the forward spar and to check the angle that I was looking for at the root after the bend was completed. If you leave it attached you may not get the correct bend in the skin and that would be bad and possibly expensive to fix:

And here is the tip after the bend. The nice thing about bending this skin is that it is MUCH easier to bend than the other skins, since just under half of the trailing edge has been removed for the area that will be populated by the moveable trim tab. ON the other hand, it does make this a bit more awkward because you have to double check to ensure that the edge is positioned exactly where it needs to be, which is a bit more difficult due to the loose skin flopping around on the inboard side.

Notice the duct tape on the edge of the tip to keep the bottom skin from sliding forward as much as possible, and the flush edge up against the hinge line. This method has worked well for me thus far. There are all sorts of other posts out there talking about using 1/8 inch dowels to keep the proper radius of the TE, or placing the edge a certain distance forward of the hinge line, etc. I have found all of this to be unnecessary. What I did do was tape down both bottom edges, added a 2x4 in front of the brake and under the skin to help support the bottom skin that hangs out of the bending brake so as to prevent the bowing of the bottom skin, and  placing the edge right up against the hinges before starting the bend. Works well enough for me.

Here is the shot from the right side. That curved tab will get cut off later.

Close enough from the top of the forward spar for me. The slight bow in the pic below is known as "ballooning", and if I really wanted to, I could keep trying to work that out until it was completely flat, but I don't think that this is necessary. Van's says to get it on top of the spar or "close" to it, so that there is not excessive stress required to hold the skin onto the spar. Strangely, this is exactly the opposite of the way that the skins for the Horizontal and Vertical stabilizers are applied to the frame. They are bent from the front side and attached to a spar at the back, so those skins are supposed to be stressed by design I guess, and they must be held down with clecoes to keep them from springing back up again.

Pic is a little confusing because the right elevator is sticking up in the back ground. So for clarity, these pics show the elevator from the front, with the forward spar web standing vertically, and the top left elevator skin shown draped just above the top edge of the forward spar flange to show where the bend ended up on the front side. If that fails to clear it up, just use your imagination! :)

Looking at the bottom side after the bend:

A blurry pic of the root end of the bend. I was still looking for about a 1/8 inch radius for the final bend. You will find that to get this raduis you will need to force the brake down to the point where the stiffeners from each side of the skin just start to contact each other. As long you do not forcefully smash the skin down to this point, and simply keep applying constant, steady pressure on the brake until this happens, you will end up with a nice crisp bend in the TE, which is what you want.

this bottom skin above looks a little bit bowed, but that is because it is sitting on top of my foam pad with no other structural support. So don't be fooled!

Next, I drew lines on each of the tabs that are going to be cut off. I marked them where the bend lines are supposed to occur, which is parallel to the line of the rest of the edge of the trim tab and elevator per the plans. I will then add another line about 1/8 inch further outward toward the end of the tab from each of these lines to ensure I have enough excess material to trim to final size after the hinges are installed on the trim tab and it is positioned on the elevator.

And now for the "2 steps back" part of this post. With the elevator skin bent successfully, time to work on the tip rib and drill that pesky lead counter weight.

Here is the rib assembly clecoed for match drilling onto the forward spar. Same way that was done for the right elevator.

Problem came after drilling the lead counterweight. I found a builders web site after completing the right elevator that mentioned the use of the drill press, and what seemed to be a better approach to drilling out the counterweight and corresponding holes in the counter balance skin and the forward flanges of the E703 and E704 tip ribs. The steps were basically to attach the rib and counterbalance assembly per the plans, but instead of free hand drilling the lead with the hand drill, simply mark the holes on the lead with a sharpee where the pilot holes on the front of the counter balance skin are located. then you disassemble everything and put the lead counterweight on the drill press and drill the holes to size. Then you put it all back together again and final drill the holes on the counter balance skin and then finally all the way through the lead weight and onto the forward flanges of the two ribs. Doing it this way seemed as though everything would line up just perfect, right?

Well, I think my big screw up may have been setting a 2x4 on the vise on my drill press so that it was level according to my bubble level, instead of ensuring it was PERPENDICULAR to the drill bit. I think this actually created an angle other than 90 degrees between the lead counterweight and my drill bit. Long story short, one of my holes in one of the ribs turned out to be just wide enough for the washer and the nut to be placed on the forward flange of the tip rib, similar to how it turned out on the right elevator.

Unfortunately, the hole I ended up with on the counterbalance rib flange was way too far inboard. Result - part ruined, hole dimensions in my counterweight are now suspected to be incorrect, and I need to order more parts and then ultimately learn how to smelt some lead to fill the holes in the counterweight and start all over again. I was too disgusted to take pics of this last night, so those will have to wait. Ordered a new counterbalance skin and counter balance rib from Vans today so should have those in a couple of days, hopefully before the holiday.

Next time I will do the following a bit differently:
1. Ensure that the counterweight is SQUARE to the drill bit instead of LEVEL to the ground - stupid me!
2. Drill a 1/16 inch hole through the lead counterweight on the drill press instead of drilling the final sized #12 hole for the screw. I will then take the counterweight with the small holes and drill through the entire assembly to see where the stupid hole will end up on the forward flange of the rib. At least this way I can tell how I need to adjust the hole, if at all, before I commit to drilling out a large hole and screwing up the hole thing all over again.

Once I know the hole is correct, I will disassemble the parts again and finish drilling the hole in the drill press.

And as a last thought before I close, let me be perfectly clear about the settings and drill speeds I used to drill out the counterweight on the drill press, which actually worked out pretty well:
1. I step drilled the counterweight just as I had done before. This allows removal of small parts of the lead without seriously bogging down the bit. I started with #40, followed by #30, #28, #21, #19, and finally a #12 bit

2. Drill press was set to 3100 RPM - as fast as it can go - I did not change it to a slower speed at all.

3. Used 3-in-1 oil RELIGIOUSLY for this. that means drill about 1/8 to 1/4 inch at a time, stop the drill bit, clean it off, re-oil the bit, drill another 1/8 to 1/4 inch, wash, rinse, repeat.

4. Technique to is be VERY SLOW with the press. I also would set the stops on the press so that the drill bit would not go all the way down initially. I would leave it about 1/8 inch high, and finish the hole by setting it down all the way once the drill had removed all the material down to that point.

5. Be sure to apply pressure to the press bar, and then back it all the way out to remove the slag. If you have the bit properly lubricated you should see small chips come out, and not see too many groove-filling slivers come up. Slivers are bad and may cause you to mis-direct your hole if you are not careful.

6. Took a while to do it this way, but the holes got drilled out as straight as my settings would allow.

Hard part about this is not being able to clamp the lead. If you try to clamp it you will distort its shape and will have to melt it down and reform and start all over again, or order a new one from Vans. This was even harder because my drill press caused the weight to vibrate quite a bit. Not so bad when you start out, but after the 2x4 got a bunch of oil all over it, it got very slipperly. I have a laser device on my press so I can keep a relatively good reference to the hole position and the drill bit. So I held the weight with my left hand and ran the press with my right.

Out of all the trials and tribulations I have endured thus far on this project, I would have to say that drilling non-pre-punched holes through multiple layers and thicknesses of dissimilar metal has to be the most challenging thing to do.

So hopefully that provides enough detail for those that may follow so that you don't screw yours up the first time around!