Center Spar - More Drilling and Rivet Preparation - 2 Hrs

Spent some more time drilling, de-burring, and generally preparing to continue riveting on the center spar.  It was warm today so with the door is open in the garage it was quite comfortable.  Should be warm all week so I hope to get more done on the center spar and start the wing spars.

I am being critical regarding my quality of drilling and spacing for the rivets.  Some mis-alignments.  Expected I suppose while learning new skills.  Before starting my CX4 project I had zero experience working with metal or drill presses, grinders, clamping etc.  This truly is a learning experience.  Guess it fits with the FAA definition of amateur built aircraft as stated in their documents.  As stated:

"Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR), part 21, section 21.191(g), defines an amateur-built aircraft as an aircraft “the major portion of which has been fabricated and assembled by person(s) who undertook the construction project solely for their own education or recreation.”

Emphasis on those last two words - "education or recreation"  It is educational - I am learning all kinds of new skills.  As for recreation?  Yes - I find it to be very relaxing and rewarding.  Until I screw something up.  Mis-drill a hole off center, buck a bad rivet, etc.  

In the following picture you can see my drilled holes include a couple of off center holes:

But I think those slightly mis-aligned holes are okay.  After all - I'm "building and airplane not a swiss watch" as I have seen it said on some other amateur built sites and message boards.

Here I am in a self taken pic de-burring the drilled holes.  I read somewhere that you should have pictures of yourself performing the work during the build process to prove you did work on your project during the DAR or FAA inspection of your build log. (of which I intend this to be) 

So here you go - for the record I am working on my center spar

De-burring the drilled holes that I will rivet later.

And just to keep it interesting - here I am lining up the center spar for drilling - probably this is the one that I mis-aligned while I was taking the self pic.  :)

As I move forward with the center spar I am considering using this as a "training piece" and trashing it at the end.  I have spent a bunch of hours on this part - and have learned but not quite perfected the skills and techniques yet.  So - If I mess up some more rivets or something I may just trash this work and start from scratch.  The raw materials I would have to trash includes two 35" pieces of aluminum angle, one 35" x 5 1/2" piece of .040 6061-T6 sheet, and two 35" pieces of 2024-T4 bar.  I have enough stock to redo.  And the angles are all reusable.  I'll make the call on wether to trash this piece or not later.  I would appreciate any feedback.  Take a look at my work as it progresses and let me know if this thing is a keeper or should I just use it as a learning experience...

And - Thanks for checking in.

Greg.