DATE: 10-01-2025 – TIME: 0:00 ~ 0:30
I picked up all my powder coated parts and they are awesome. So much better than a paint job that would have scratched off as soon as I started assembling.
I had to start by doing some reorganizing of the shop to make it convenient for final assembly of the rear fuselage, which you will see in the pics.
One of the parts I sent for powder coating was the front pickup for the tail skid, otherwise known as part SD75F41-3. Zenith has various ways of doing this but as I had already riveted the forward HT fram C75F2-4 and the SD75F41-2 together and to the bottom skin which was already fully assembled with the longerons, my options were a little limited.
I already had a centre line drawn but had not drilled the hole in the skin as I wanted to be certain to get it the correct distance from the HT frame and I couldn’t do that until I had received the 41-3 pickup back from powder coating.
I then measured the distance from the centre of the bolt to the frame and figure 1.75″ was pretty close so I drilled the hole on the centre line 1.75″ from the HT frame. The initial hole was 5/8″, the size for the bolt. This proved to be too tight a fit to rivet the pickup to the HT frame assembly without stressing the skin so I drilled the hole a little larger to 3/8″ and the fit was near perfect.
The process did not take long. I will post some pics as soon as I can get them off the workshop surveillance machine.