I have a new definition of torture. Yesterday I got slightly burnt on my shoulders and upper back. Fine, it was not all that sore. It is just that at one stage I needed to hold the back of the plane whilst some drilling got done. But it was just that the plane was above my head, and so my hair got filled with aluminium filings. There were described at being like tinsel in my hair. But unlike tinsel, this aluminium was coarser and thicker. What also happenes with this aluminium is that it breaks into small coarse pieces.

These coarse pieces are really sharp. When I shook my head to get the filings out some of them went under my T-Shirt and rubbed on my sunburn. And I can assure you this was not nice. Fortunately shaking my shirt got most of the filings out, leading to less pain. Actually the sunburn was not bad except when I put a bag over my shoulder or with the filings.

So what did I do today? We hit a number of rivets – probably about only 40 or so; not all that many really. Then we put on the top plate at the rear of the fuselage – although this did invole me making up two small adapter plates according to the drawings. Fairly simple work actually. Then some more holes got drilled to attach it. Then we put all the top sheets on the fuselage for the first time. This makes the object look like a real plane. It really does. And finally we built a platform to get the perspex fuselage out of the way for storage.

All in all it was an enjoyable day, although after I finish this entry I can assure you I will be going straight to bed.