Tight fit!

This evening I drilled the 3mm holes in the back of the sponson for the arneson drivers as well as the two 8mm holes for the stuffing tubes.

Regarding the position of these you can refer to my earlier post regarding the vertical alignment.

For the horizontal alignment basically the drive shafts need to be perfectly parallel to the inner walls of the sponsons and you want to keep everything as close to tunnel as possible. You can measure this with a straight edge and a ruler or an inclinometer. I did both but decided the ruler method was just as accurate.

Guide helps to centre hole

Its a serious tight fit trying to get the nuts on the lower (thise nearest the bottom of the sponson) screws of the arneson drive, I actually had to grind away a little with the dremel on the inside of the sponsons to make enough room for the nuts which did not make me too happy. Maybe thats one of the reason's Hanspeter recommends the 1mm space between the bottom of the transom and arneson drive mounting plates (see my previous post). Mine are actually spaced at 0.5mm

I also decided on going for the option of glueing the stainless M3 lock nuts to the inside of the sponson transoms for the arneson drivers. I am not sure this is the right thing to do but I will find out in 24h when I try and unscrew the drives.

I hope that:

a. the screws are not glued
b. that the resin is strong enough to retain the nuts







Its important to sand all the sides of the 3mm stainless lock nuts and then clean with some acetone so that the resin adheres properly.