Fuselage

October 30, 2008

Clamped and drilled seatbelt anchors - 2.0 Hrs.

Sometimes drilling a simple hole involves all kinds of setup. This is a classic case of underestimating. I thought I could drill these simple seatbelt anchors to the bulkhead spar in a few minutes. You can't be in a hurry with this airplane. If you want things done right, you have to take your time and not worry about how long something takes. With these seatbelt anchors, they attach in pairs. A left one and a right one for each seatbelt strap. You carefully measure and mark one of the pair, drill, then cleco it to the bulkhead spar. The other one is paired to it, clamped, and drilled through from the back side.

This elaborate setup is all done to drill one simple hole in the undrilled bracket of the pair. There is a spacer (piece of scrap with an "x" on it) to insure the pair of brackets is properly spaced apart. Care is taken to make sure the pair is straight, parallel to each other, and perpendicular to the spar in the vertical plane and at a right angle in the horizontal plane. Then when it's all clamped in place, you drill from the backside through a pilot hole already made in the spar. Then it will all come apart for the usual deburring, scuffing, cleaning, and priming before being bolted on for good. The 4 pairs took my whole work session tonight. But I only had a couple of hours and I know my seatbelts are done right. It feels good.

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