10/4/2003
4 hours: I tried to start deburring the holes in the ribs, but found that the manual tools were really difficult to use due to the angles involved. I had heard about people putting the debur tool in their electric drill motors, but this sounded awkward and I don't have the right attachment to mount the threaded debur bit in my motor. But for ribs that has got to be the way to go...I wrapped some masking tape around the threads and chucked the bit and extension in, and it worked great. It only took about a half hour. I also did the spar skin holes. About then, my pneumatic squeezer that I bought on ebay arrived in the mail. This unit has seen some serious service; it's steel body is scratched everywhere and it came complete with a layer of ancient sticky grease, rust, peeling paint, and that smell of decaying oil and metal. It took me a full hour just to get the rusted yoke bolts off to try to figure out how to shim the thing. Well, I'm still not certain how, but it turns out the Avery hand squeezer adjustable set fits in there fine (I already ordered the pneumatic adjustable set, which is very similar as far as I can tell...for $35 more than the hand-squeezer set. I may return it.)
Though the thing leaks a little air and is a bit noisy it still looks to be a very useful tool, and I broke it in by dimpling all the ribs. It took no time at all, despite having to do some of them twice after the adjustable set got turned too shallow. Need to check that thing after each rib. I started building a jig to countersink the spars in. Looks like some other builders have just clamped some cut-down 2x4s to their drill press table, and that sounds like a good plan to me.