With the flight-deck in situ, and bearing in mind that this is a third-scale mock-up, now is the time to stress-test the construction. I'm pushing a post-pandemic twelve stone here, and there's barely a murmur from my 18-gauge alloys. "She's a fine vessel sir, and no mistake." I say to myself.
In fact it should feel like the sprung dance-floor in Blackpool's Tower Ballroom, as in the TV series Strictly Come Droning.
Of course a 1" square section is too large at this scale anyway, so as we scale up we're likely to stick with it, increasing the thickness as we go. We'll go a long way on 1/16th inch instead, whilst we can only dream of working in 1/8th. And we've yet to begin to talk about aviation grade alloys!
(And though I've always been a bit of a metal-basher, there's carbon-fibre tubes for the fledglings amongst us too.)
Take a break, for this afternoon I'll be putting the skids under us all.
