Saturday October 2, 2021
Stick Boot Rings (Center Fuselage)
1.8 Hours

Today I fabricated the stick boot rings that secure the stick boots to the seat pans. You make them from 0.032" aluminum sheet. First I cut two rectangles to size.

I very carefully marked hole positions--you can't back drill them to the seat pans because those have nutplates on them already and they're angled.

I drilled the attach holes and then started working on removing the central hole. I drilled 1/2" holes in the corner for the 1/4" radius.

Then I connected the corner holes with a cutoff wheel in the die grinder.

And finally I smoothed the inner contour with a dremel wheel. I did all of the last few steps with the rings cleco'd together so I only had to do each step once.

When I placed them on the seat pans I realized that two of my hole measurements where switched side-to-side, so I had to drill a couple of new holes. Then, I bent the rings to match the seat pans.

Here's the other side--they look pretty good, minus the extra holes.

Finally, I mixed up a little micro/epoxy and filled in the bad holes. Once they're painted, you won't be able to see them.

This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International