When I’m not working I’ll usually be in the workshop building something, or out sailing on the San Francisco Bay.
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Meet Skylark
After my co-owners decided to pull the trigger on their cruising plans, we decided to sell our faithful bay sailer Joyous, a Catalina 30 and I started looking for my next boat. I plan to spend some time cruising in my future too, so I decided to look for a proven blue water design. After……
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Toyota 4Runner LED Turn Signals
I had a turn signal out on my 2007 Toyota 4Runner Limited V8 and thought this would be a great time to upgrade to LED turn signals. I swapped in these: Front: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VDNSLLK Rear: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0755F9G1P They seem well built and are significantly brighter than the stock incandescent bulbs. However, due to the lower current draw……
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Started riveting T03-05
Today I managed to squeeze in half an hour after work and started riveting the horizontal stabilizer forward spar assembly. Mostly smooth sailing until I had to use my ground down angled rivet nose to get the rivets close to the edge. I had another few stems break higher than normal and one was actually proud……
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First finished assembly
Today I finished the T03-01 horizontal stabilizer main spar assembly. I started by trying to improve my tools for riveting in tight spaces. I ground down the spare (slightly larger) tip of the rivet gun to have an angle and also ground down some of the nose piece. The EAA has some helpful videos on this……
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First rivets
Today I pulled the my first rivets! The Sonex is built from 6061 alloy which doesn’t need to be primed for corrosion protection, however the blind rivets used are made from stainless steel which raises the question of galvanic corrosion. Sonex say they have never seen a problem with galvanic corrosion but because I live by……
Fergus Noble 