Not much progress recently, a rather tough weekend around the house. Before I finished up the HS left side, I wanted to make sure that the HS-702 tab seen here – left with a smaller edge radius where the excess flange radius was removed – wasn’t too sharp. I emailed Van’s with some pictures, and they gave me the thumbs-up.

One tricky area I encountered was how to drill the HS-405 front flange, and trim the HS-404 aft flange, so that when the two are drilled together all holes have the proper edge distance. Based on newsgroup emails, this area has been a problem for others as well. So, I cut two strips of scrap 0.032″ aluminum and clamped them to the -404 and -405, as a sort of simulated HS skin. I marked the HS-404 flange edges on the -405 and used those marks, plus a little margin for error, to lay out the two center #40 holes called for in the plans. If you use this approach, be sure to pull the -404’s flange tight against the -405 after they are clamped together.