June 11, 2005 - Fuselage Firewall
Match drilling one of the angle stiffeners. 
This is one of the two angle brackets that I spent way too much time fashioning out of angle stock.  I had worried a little bit about how I would match-drill it, but like so many aspects of the project, with a little ingenuity, it was a piece of cake.  I clamped everything together as pictured. 
Then flipped it over and match-drilled it using the firewall as a template.  The holes came out great.
Next I clecoed all the stiffeners to the firewall and match-drilled them.  Because stainless steel will dull your drill bits quickly, I used lots of Boelube -- the white residue seen in this picture -- and ran the drill at slow speed, per Van's instructions. 
Everything clecoed together and drilled. 
This is the brake line doubler plate which I had to cut from stock, but could use predrilled holes in the firewall as a template for drilling.
The doubler plate after match drilling.  The two interior holes have to be drilled to 7/16 so the brake lines can run through them.  Van's recommends a Unitbit for this job.
 It worked very well, making nice smooth round holes. 
 
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