March 22, 2006 - Baggage Floor Door

You may recall, I decided to put the strobe power supply and ELT behind the right seat.  But I still liked the idea of having a little storage area under the right baggage floor, so I can keep a quarter of oil and some tools there, yet still do a loop or roll anytime I want to. 

The first step was to draw a rectangular hole in the floor so I could know where to cut.

Then I started drilling 3/4" holes with the Unibit, followed by getting the shears and cutting aluminum.  I had to use the dremel tool to trim the edges a little, then file, and sand. 
Voila!  A nice rectangular hole. 
 
I cut out the door and hinges.  I riveted one hinge half to the door, but realized after playing around with it, that I had not riveted the hinge half close enough to the door edge, so the door would not swing freely.  I had to drill out the rivets, trim the door, then re-rivet the hinge.  The second time around, however, the riveting came out horrible.  I'm going to have to junk the door and make a new one.  Two hours of work, wasted.  I may give up on the hinge and just screw the door to the floor with flush screws and nutplates. 
 
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