Sunday, January 13, 2008

Cutting & Filing Skin Panels

More work on the skins today.

I cut out the remaining fine laser-cut panels, using a most excellent tip from Chris James. Using a chisel, I worked the blade back and forth in the groove of the cut, until the small tabs holding each piece were broken. On Chris' advice, I kept the flat part of the chisel facing the body of the skins, and the slanted part facing the panel to be removed. This way, it's less likely that the skins will be damaged. Thank you, Chris!



It took a little while, but slowly I was able to remove all panels from each layer of the skins.



Once all the panels were removed, I set the skins up next to the frame, and the fit looked good. And why stop there, when it can be topped off with the R&J dome?



With every panel now removed, it was time to start filing down the many metal tabs that kept them in place. At least this time, I have a proper set of small files.



Repeat a million times, and I'll be done. I got through about 2/3 of the tabs, I hope to finish the rest during the week.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

cool. i'm glad it worked out :)