I started today by jigging and tack welding into place strips of stainless steel behind the channel that supports the back of the windscreen. Then started final welding this into place when my Argon ran out when about a third of the way across so the rest will have to wait for another day. With no welding possible there was no option but to bend some aluminium so I started on the framing for the left side window. This sits on the outside of the fuselage butting against the window bows at the top and the stub longerons at the bottom. First job was to create a section of angle to support the bottom of the window from the inside. This will screw onto the tabs already in place to support the side of the combing. The outside of the window at the bottom will be supported by the aluminium skin that cover the first 18" of the fuselage. Next the two sections of angle that surround the top front door post were fabricated. the rear one is a U section that will screw to the outside of the window; the internal dimension of the U has to be equal to the diameter of the door post (3/4") plus the thickness of the window (2mm). The front one is a "step" shape that forms the support on the inside of the window; in this case the thickness of the step needs to be exactly 3/4". A 2mm spacer was sawn out of wood to mimic the thickness of the windscreen and can be seen clecoed between the two sections. It took two goes to bend the rear section to exactly the correct width but the front one worked first time. The front/back dimension of the box created around the door frame by the two sections is about 1-1/8" to allow room to duct the cables and pitot tube up to the wing root from behind the panel.
