Bodywork now nearly complete

It's been a long time since the last entry, but in the background I've been beavering away. The two panels which were the wrong shape were replaced by Westfield. I found that even these new panels needed a bit of trimming if they were to not be proud of the chassis in a number of places. After a bit of experimentation, including buying Drapers clone of the Dremel, and using a grinding wheel I found the best way to get the panels to fit was to use a file I had lying around. As I've heard aluminium dust is not good for you I wore a face mask whilst doing all this.

I ordered the optional side panels, which each have approximately 75 holes to be drilled, and the same number of rivets. I found that with my rechargeable drill I could drill about 25 - 30 holes before the battery went flat, and I didn't have a spare battery. This was one of the reasons for the length of time things have taken. The other usual suspects, holidays, family commitments etc. also played their part. Annoyingly right at the end I discovered that using a high speed on the drill actually took longer to drill a hole than using a slow drill speed. A slow speed ensured that the drill bit slipped less too, making smaller tidier holes.

Even more annoyingly I ran out of rivets, and I've had to order some more. I'm not quite certain how that happened as the box claims there are 500, but my sums suggest there were far fewer holes than that. I know I waste a few, dropping them on the floor etc. but I didn't think it was that many.

Below is an image of things as they look now. The next step is the pedal assemblies. I'm hoping this will go smoothly, and there will soon be some more progress to report.