Van’s offers two practice kits to exercise to help form the skills you need to build an airplane on something other than the airplane you want to build. One is a toolbox, the other is a small section of an aileron.
We started on the toolbox, first. Here’s a picture of the first pieces clekoed together:
Shortly thereafter, we realized that we really needed our hand squeezer to dimple the flanges. We do have the DRDT-2, but our hand squeezer is backordered, and there’s no way to get the flangers into the DRDT2-2. Frustrating. We also discovered that the deburring tool we have doesn’t work on small drill holes, and the other deburring tool is also backordered.
So we started on the airfoil. We were able to get reasonably far on it, before we realized we had the same problem.
Still, that was an entire day’s worth of work. And we haven’t even started on the airplane!
I am way excited for you! In reading through all posts , Is Jonah = Joannah? I will do any thing I can to help you complete project, tho Randy will tell you, I’m not allowed to work on actual plane. I’m more about encouraging from afar! Can I make an itty bitty tool box?
Jonah is Joanna’s nickname, yes.
Feel free to show up and help! While I’ve heard about your mechanical prowess, there are *lots * of tasks that do not require any special abilities whatsoever, and we will put you to work if you’re here!