I Need Some Time to Ponder the Rear Spar

I have no idea why.  It is pretty easy.  Make a measurement, drill some holes and you’re done.  Its the measurement…it always comes down to the measurement.  The problem is the instructions.  They tell you to measure the height of the tooling holes in the inner rib of the HS from the deck.  This is really hard.  The holes are recessed into the HS so it is incredibly difficult to get a accurate measurement.  I tried multiple ways, and was just not happy with the consistency.  Shopping for something else at Lowes I determined that a 3/16″ rod would solve the problem.

So there you go.  This will produce an accurate measurement.  I don’t need the actual value, I need to make sure the number is consistent on one side and the other.

Ok…the numbers are off.  I thought about just lifting one side, but that didn’t feel right.  It turned out I had some washers missing from the forward spar.  Once that was corrected the value was spot on.

There is one more important measurement here.  Looking at the rear spar, above, you have to get a measurement of 3/16″ from the bottom of the spar to the deck.  So I begin the search for something that is 3/16″ that I can slide under there to get the right measurement.  If you notice there are rivet heads under the spar, which means you have to find something that will fit in between the rivets.  About an hour of messing around with various methods and failing it suddenly dawned on me that the 3/16″ rod that I bought is, ironically, 3/16″.  Duh.

Viola!  A precise 3/16″ gap.  The gap is required to get a 0° incidence from the HS.  Getting pretty close to time to drill.