Over the weekend, John, Cindy and Chad came over for my Shameless Ploy Party. It was a rather intimate party. This is what we did:

These are two 8-foot workbenches mounted to the wall about 2 feet apart. In between them is a lower shelf with my miter saw attached. This leaves the deck of the miter saw exactly the same as the surface of the workbench, making it very easy to cut long boards with no supplemental support. I'm very pleased with this.

Last night, Kat and I did some more stuff.

This is my fuselage jig for the airplane. I bought this jig about 6 years ago for $75. For the last 2 years, it's been forced to live outside, so you can see it's become quite weathered. Last night was the first time I've seen the entire thing all set up. To the left side of this photo is where the firewall of the airplane would go, against the taller vertical pieces at the end. The airplane is constructed on this jig upside down, which I'm sure is going to confuse me to no end.

Finally, I decided I just needed to drill some holes.

This is the firewall. It comes from Van's semi-assembled. The stainless steel firewall itself is pre-drilled with all expected holes (except any I need to add for heat ducts, control cables, and the like). There are various weldments and angle aluminum clecoed to the back, which you can't see. These pieces come from Van's with only enough holes drilled through to hold them in place -- the rest of the drilling is up to you. This is pretty standard with many of the RV-6A parts. Last night, I drilled out most of the remaining holes. Van's clecoes are on the bottom -- you can barely see a few of them in this photo. The clecoes poking out the top of the firewall represent the ones I added, about 1 every other hole.

For the first time in 3 years, I was able to work on my airplane!