Mark the plans - 15/8/2011

Personally, I find the plans sometimes complicated and scattered with information.

For the plans of the empenage, it is still controllable, but once you hit the wing and fuselage plans you will be overwhelmed with information.

A good advice to make things clearer is to use color coding for different information on these plans.

I use the following color codes:

Green marker: all the item identification parts
Pink marker : all the bolts, rivets, washers, hardware identification parts
Yellow marker: all the indifcations of drill sizes, distance, measurements and actions to do (like 'min 3/32", 'enlarge hole to #30')
Blue marker : all the references to other plans or notes on the plans.

I personally did this on every single plan I own in the same consistent manner.
It allows me to quickly find a rivet size without having to go through all the uniform looking text.

Things may start looking like a color book in the end but believe me: all that info on there is often doubled and suddenly you see much clearer then first time you looked at them.

During the build process, time is everything. Having to search for relevant information is loss of time.
This is a real time saver in the long run.


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