12-23-2021

I cleco'd the upper skin in place along with the stiffeners inside the fuel bay to provide rigidity and actual shape of the upper skin, then flipped the wings over. 

I tried using a 2 1/8" hole saw on a scrap piece of metal but the teeth were too coarse and it chewed up the metal. I then purchased a 2 1/8" hole punch for the job. Using the marks I had previously made, I drilled holes for the center bolt of the hole punch with a uni-bit, then cut the filler neck hole with the hole punch. Nice, clean cuts. 

After double-checking the fit of the tank with the filler neck hole, I moved on to begin fabricating the upper straps that will hold the tank in place. I shaped the straps over the fuel tank as described in the builders manual and placed them on top of the fuel bay stiffeners to trim them so they touched the flanges of the lower spar (located on top in the picture as the wing is upside down). After trimming to length, marking the fastener holes and drilling the fastener holes 1/8" lower than the mark (as shown in the picture), I trimmed and radioused the ends of the straps.