Starting on Center Console & Rudder Pedals

Posted On September 23, 2019

As I was getting ready to start working on the next sheet of the center fuselage – sheet E8 – I noticed that I had some extra parts in the controls subsection bag that aren’t mentioned in the build manual. I figured out that these brackets function as locking plates for the bushings on the joystick. They weren’t cut to the right size though, so I have to grind away quite a bit of material to get from the diameter I measured 44.6mm up to 45.5mm to fit smoothly over the bushing without squeezing it.

The part in front is too narrow to fit over the bushing on the joystick assembly. You can see how much material I removed from the part in the back, using a flat file.

I need to remove all the material up to the black marker line, what’s the best tool to do this?

Continuing on, I started fitting parts in place for the rudder pedal base and the center console per Sheet E8. I attach the rivnuts to the Z-sections CF-ZSC-001-L/R before riveting the z-sections onto the floor – it’s a lot easier to put in these rivnuts while the piece is clamped to my counter.

In my last post, I mentioned that I used a step drill (with imperial measurements) to open the rivnut holes to 7/32″, followed by a 6mm drill bit. I forgot I had a stepless reamer in my toolbox, so I started using that to open the holes to 6mm after using the step drill. The results are slightly better than using the metric drill bit. I’m going to order a metric step drill, since I have a lot more rivnuts to install in the fuselage kit (about 160 more to go!)

I use this continuous reamer to increase the hole size to 6mm for the rivnuts after using the 7/32″ step on the step drill

I pre-attached CF-ANG-046 to the z-section along with the rivnuts before positioning it onto the floor assembly. Note that the last rivnut on this z-section shares a hole with the angle bracket – I didn’t notice this the first time, so I had to drill out the rivnut and redo it.

Z-sections positioned onto the floor, along with the rudder pedal base. The satin paint finish on this skin is looking great–no glare, even though I have some pretty bright lights shining onto it!

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