Fueled

September 10, 2015 Hours spent building to date 1,415

The heat wave has finally broken and I’ve really been working again after days of thinking of simple things to do once the shop turns into a hothouse at about 2 pm.

The fuel tanks are in and tied down tight. I trimmed the vertical braces for a “hammer in” fit, and set the tanks themselves on thick, closed cell foam weather stripping so I could really squish them down. The tie-downs are 2 X 1 1/2 fir double fastened with heavy screws through the engine stringers. The floor joists are also screwed in tight to provide a second line of defense against a tank getting loose. Also put weather stripping between the tanks to prevent wear and rattles.

This whole thing and the flooring and dinette structure to come is designed to be taken apart in case a tank absolutely has to be removed. But as far as I’m concerned, this is a lifetime installation (given that “lifetime” in my case is a relatively simpler promise to make than it once was).

Ray came over and we bent the forecabin sides on permanently. A decent fit considering that a lot of it was guesswork, since I had to work from a ladder and sort of imagine how the plywood would bend around, since there was no way I could force it in one-handed for a practice fit. Mark has once again anticipated the travails of an amateur builder and a heavy rubrail will hide the eventual filling and trimming.