Day 41 - Cutting the gunbox holes, test fitting

I dremeled out the gunbox holes, which was a very nerve-wracking thing for me!  I had the basic outline of where I needed to cut, but I knew that there would have to be a lot of tweaking and adjustment to get things just right.  I trimmed and fitted, trimmed and fitted, trimmed and fitted for what seemed like hours (probably was).  Trimming was done using a variety of methods.  I dremeled at an extreme angle to make sure the sides of the gunbox were perpendicular to the front of and parallel to the sides of the shoulders, and then I evened it all down with the belt sander, at least, as much of the belt sander as I could fit into such a tight space.

Finally, I got it to where I wanted it to be.  There are a few largish gaps, so I'll need to figure out how I want to glue it all.  I might use some scrap, and then use the Liquid Nails on top of that.  But those gaps allowed me to tweak the position of the box to get the angle of it just right, which didn't require that much adjustment, really.  I'm really happy that the gunbox angle is correct!

Then, I tried my best to repeat what I did on one side to the other side, and eventually I got both gunboxes in there, ready to be glued!  Actually, I need to make sure that the boxes are in a good relative position to one another first, and then mark and trim away the excess bits from the inside of the shoulders to maximize elbow room.



Latest stack shot follows!