This night I spent some more time on the toolbox training project, and I'm almost done. Riveting was much quicker than yesterday, as well as all the other tasks. I still have to put the handle on and cut the hinge pin to its final length, but I will have to buck the handle rivets, and I don't want to cut the hinge pin until the lid stays on. This will have to wait a little, because before I can buck anything, I will have to finish the anti-noise enclosure for my compressor.
Yesterday night I started with the toolbox training project. I cut the hinge to the correct length, and match-drilled, deburred, and dimpled the two side walls. I also riveted one of them. That's how the toolbox looked after dimpling:
And my first rivets. Not bad, but I'll need much more practice if I want to finish the plane before the end of the universe. Boy, am I slow!
Tonight I did the inventory of the empennage kit. Nothing is missing and everything was neatly packed.
Yesterday I received a voice message from the shipping company about my empennage kit, so I called them back this morning. Over the course of the day we exchanged about ten mails and five or six phone calls until the packages were cleared through customs. The whole thing reminded me a bit of Asterix' famous permit A38, but fortunately the clerk at the shipping company did the hard work.
Knowing that they would deliver the empennage today, I stayed at home and waited for the truck. It arrived just after lunch time, and the driver looked very confused about the address. He expected some company, not a residential area, and he was very glad when I confirmed that the packages were indeed for me.
I had to go to work after receiving the kit, so the unpacking had to wait till the evening. Opening the boxes was like Christmas! And everything was very well packed.
I have a very dear friend visiting me on the weekend, so the inventory will have to wait until next week.
Today I built a shelf that is self-supporting, as I can't drill into the walls. It's great to have a workbench -- beats working on the floor every time. The shelf is supported by two L-shaped frames with a diagonal stabilisation board:
Like the workbench, the shelf got castors, so I can move it around if I ever need.
Yesterday I finished the first workbench and it came out really nice. These things are heavy, but sturdy. It's nice to have a table now to work on.
The next project will be the noise suppression enclosure for the compressor, and two shelves. I'm in urgent need of storage space, as in my previous apartment I had large shelves mounted on the walls, but here I'm not allowed to drill any holes, so everything must be self-supported.
I also received the missing tools from Avery, which were on backorder in December.
