I started securing the bottom cowl, first by laying out and drilling most of the Skybolt brackets (except the top ones near the split line, since we haven't cut the split yet), then match-drilling the center holes:
Bottom cowl Skybolt brackets clecoed in place
Bottom cowl right side held only by clecos through the Skybolt brackets
Bottom cowl left side held only by clecos through the Skybolt brackets
Skybolt bottom cowl brackets and cleco adapters in place
The brackets near the engine mounts required some special attention, and one of them needed to be trimmed off to not touch the mount:
Skybolt brackets very close to the engine mount
I then started attaching the actual Skybolt receptacles/grommets/retainers/studs - starting with the single ones on the bottom of the cowl, then the one in the curve, then the remaining ones - that ensured that it'd all fit tightly with no misalignment:
First bottom cowl Skybolt, at the bottom of the cowl
Bottom cowl side Skybolt holes drilled to size
Bottom Skybolts installed
The tip that helped the most for drilling the Skybolt holes was to use their cleco adapters as centering sights, and "walking" the hole to center them if needed. Unfortunately attaching these in place with both cowl halves in place is very annoying, but with a creeper and some flexibility I managed almost all of them without removing the top cowl:
Skybolt cleco adapter showing the center of the bracket hole
The bottom cowl hangs by the Skybolts alone:
Bottom cowl supported only by the Skybolts
Top and bottom cowls, supported by the Skybolts
With this, the next steps in the cowl are to trim the sides to the split line, install the side Skybolts, and install the Showplanes nose gear fairing.
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