July 19th

Every day for the past few weeks has been pretty much the same. Tom tried drilling out some of the broken screws and used an extractor set to remove the remnants, but was unsuccessful. Drill bits broke as did the extractor set and even heating the aluminum to dilate the thread only helped some. No one knew how challenging this task was going to be and so only the necessary bolts will be replaced. A machinist will be hired to replace the broken and impossible bolts that we think need to be replaced. The rest of the bolts will remain in place. Depending on when we can get the machinist to come in, assembly may start before the impossible bolts are dealt with. 

Today the four support beams that were placed on top of the box prior to moving the big aluminum pieces were cleaned with the aluminum jelly. The mounting surfaces need to be sanded tomorrow so that they are as smooth as can be.