I haven’t gotten a lot done on the build between Christmas and a 3-day trip down to Charleston, SC . . .  all while feeling a bit under the weather with a persistent, nagging cold.

Today was yet another nice weather day so I decided to start off by wet sanding the cured white primer on the aft nose/avionics cover with 500 grit sandpaper.

As you can see, the areas around the inboard elevator fairings definitely needed the most work and probably another round of primer will be required.

I then got to work on the milling machine CNC control box, primarily the left side. I drilled out ports for the stepper motor control cables, the KP-3 touch probe cable, the power cord, and 10 amp fuse holder.

In addition, I mounted 18 K1000-3 nutplates to the CNC control box pack plate to mount the stepper motor power supplies and drivers.  I also hard mounted the Acorn power supply, the KBSI-240D spindle controller board, and the 8-relay breakout board onto the CNC control box back plate.  Finally, I mounted a #6 nutplate and drilled/tapped #6 screw hardpoints to mount the Acorn CNC control board in the lower left corner.

I’ll continue to work concurrently on the both the plane and the milling machine CNC control box over the next few days in my quest to get both the plane flipped and my milling machine on line. Quite a few parts will need to be machined soon for this bird!