I took a break from the fiberglass work while waiting on some supplies and started working on the remaining butt rib (Left Wing). I needed to get this butt rib fixed in place so I could move on to fitting the windshield bracket. I taped the rib in place with blue painters tape using paint stir sticks as spacers (conveniently 1/8th inch thick), these set up the proper spacing between the butt rib and the first rib in the wing. The skylight spans the cabin and attaches to the butt ribs on each side. Once the butt rib was secured and correctly aligned, I drilled the butt rib standoffs and cleco'd them in place. These will be secured with Hysol and rivets later. I will use lock plates in the butt rib so I will be able to remove them if ever I need to.
The butt rib needed to be set before I could work on the windshield bracket and the turtle deck/skylight bracket because the butt ribs are use to align the other brackets. Once done, I started measuring the windshield bracket to determine what needed to be trimmed from the bracket. After a while I got it to fit correctly. This windshield bracket must fit flush with the butt ribs on either side. So, I laid an angle bracket across the butt ribs and adjusted the windshield bracket so it was perfectly flush with the angle bracket. I drilled and cleco'd the windshield bracket in place.
After finishing with the windshield bracket I moved on to the turtle deck bracket. It needs to be fitted the same way as the windshield bracket, flush with the butt ribs on either side. After trimming to go around cabin frame work, I clamped it into place allowing me to drill for clecos. This was a bit easier because there was less frame work to clear. I still have to clean up the cuts but the rough fit is done.
I set the turtle deck up on the fuselage to see what I would have to cut to make it fit. This will help in making my template for the acrylic turtle deck. Once I get this in place I can mock up the sides to give me an accurate template used to cut the acrylic.
