Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F wrote:
Thanks for the overlay. I didn't realize the tunnel was so low on the McSorley Design.
On the Gibbs, consider replacing the green tubes with the blue.
Consider a Miwaukee handheld bandsaw or even the cheap HBF/Northern Tool unit versus the chop saw. The difference is night and day.
Yes, the tunnel on the McSorley chassis looks tiny, especially when compared to the Gibbs chassis, which is pretty close the the original "book" design.
The idea of the portable bandsaw is worth checking out. Are you able to hold it steady enough to get a nice straight cut? I know my work with a hand held hacksaw tends to go crooked in larger or thicker materials. I bought the ubiquitous Harbor Freight metal cutting band saw for plate work, but was going to use the chop saw for tubes and RHS. I did find a home machine shop site that has a nice design for a stationary stand for the HF unit. It turns it into a fairly decent vertical bandsaw and gets rid of their flimsy tilting stand, which I think is dangerous.
Yes, I can see the paths you have in blue are very direct and simple. I think the slant-down to the back of the cockpit is more tradition than necessary engineering. I notice one clever new Sevenesque design called the Toniq keeps the impression of the steep drop down in its fiberglass bodywork even though it's not really that deep in the chassis tubes and is covered up by a pseudo-door structure. I see a number of Aussie 7s (Clubmans to them) have also done away with it and use horizontal top rails. I'm going to consider doing that too along with a deeper top tube as suggested in the Aussie mods for V6s and Wesley Linton thesis.
Cheers,
Lonnie