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How did you set up to 3/8” ream your rear spar?

RV-Ogler

Active Member
Pg 15-04 step 7 has you ream to rear spar with a 3/8” reamer and says it is a critical hole and must be done on a drill press. I’m going to practice on scrap first since I have never used a reamer.

Did you use cutting fluid? How did you locate your work on the drill press and clamp it in place so it wont move and remain in the correct position?
 
I like the following method.

  • Block up the work so that it is level with your drill press
  • Chuck up a smaller drill that just fits the pilot hole that already exists
  • Maneuver the work until that drill will go through the part just perfectly
  • Clamp the work down very well
  • Double check that the test drill still moves nicely
  • Swap out that test drill for the reamer
  • Go to town!

Note: you might need to shorten the reamer shank so that you can get it into your drill press chuck without disturbing the clamped spar. I had to do so on my little drill press. It doesn't have much depth of throw.

-G
 
I did not use a drill press. The reamer will remove a very tiny bit of material and will self guide very easily. I did use cutting oil.

When I did this I was nervous about it, but ended up being a non-event.

Good luck 👍
 
All done looks pretty clean. Plans said to do this step now, guess I’ll find out in a couple years how well it’s located when I put the wings on the fuselage. Guess there is plenty of edge distance if I need to adjust incidence and use an oversize bolt. But I'm confident it’s where it’s supposed to be anyway. (But still I’m gonna wonder, grrr)
 
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