A real marathon day, to be sure. Just gearing up for this phase took some time. It has been a while since I did any external skinning (back in the day of the horizontal stab), so I needed to have a refresher course on methodology. I leveled the skeleton, then test measured the dimensions to be sure that the skin, as specified, would fit. It did, although I will probably make my next skin slightly wider (front to back) and then trim to a perfect fit. Because I didn't want to remove the skeleton and have to re-level later, I did all the skin measuring, marking and drilling on the garage floor. You'll know I spent several hours on a hard concrete floor the next time you see me...hobbling a bit. My only minor goof was to drill through the front edge into the upper spar cap before my leading edge skin was in place. I'm already devising a work-around, but I should have caught this. Rookie mistake! At least I have three other top and bottom skins to practice on.
Checking dimension of top skin to be cut
All drilled and temporarily fastened
My only goof. Drilling the front spar cap before the leading edge skin is in place.
