Fuselage – Page 49

Back to Work

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 4 Hours

I had a nice 6 month training event at Flight Safety which is always a fun challenge. It always amazes me at the scenarios that the instructors can put you through this fun little box.

After training was through I drove up to Las Vegas to meet up with my girl was there on a business trip. We had a lot of fun on this long weekend, we also got to catch the Red Bull air races while we were there.

When I got home I had a lot of errands and stuff to do since I was gone for 8 days. However I did manage to get 4 hours in the Hangar. I decided to wait on the fuselage aft bulkheads and work on the panel bulkhead that I had messed up and reordered the part for. If you remember the lower bulkhead had a 2″ passthrough that I added to help clean up the look. When I measured for the placement I didn’t take into account the parts for the mod I did on the baggage floor. The placement put the pipe, and it’s 90° elbow, hitting the edge of one of the CamLo’s in the baggage floor. So I did some new measurements and got to work on it. Not a lot to show as it was just as I did before. Here you can see the placement of the error and the new one.

I replaced the passthrough along with new nutplates and primed/painted the parts. I will reinstall it after it cures for a few day.

My goal for this weekend is to winterize my Harley and get it put in storage. That will give me room to build a new stationary workbench that will be 2′ off the ground. This will hold the fuselage at a better working height as it grows. It will also free up the rolling workbench for work space.

More Deburring

Posted on October 4, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 4 Hours

I got home from my trip this afternoon and took care of some errands before getting back in the Hangar. The first items up were to match drill all the bulkheads, arm rests and gussets. I was then able to combine the forward floor section, center section and mid fuselage.

I then grabbed the two forward skins and removed the blue film from the inside for eventual priming and painting. I then grabbed the soldering iron and removed the blue film over the rivet lines.

I then got to the deburring of all the edges and punched holes. With all the edges nice I put them in their place on the fuselage. The plans call for a lot of clecko’s to hold everything in proper place.

I have run out of 1/8″ clecko’s and need to order more this week while I’m in flight training. The last thing I did today was to add several side support angles on the side skins. Next up the aft tail cone and all its bulkheads.

Mid Fuselage Work

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 6 Hours

Today I started with debuting all the edges and large holes of the two mid fuselage side skins. Not too much to show with that process so there are no photos of it. When I finished that work up I ran to Home Depot to grab a 4′ section of 3/4″ x 3/4″ aluminum angle for the bending of those skins. The plans give you several measurements that you use to make some lines for reference as you bend. The first is a line 1/4″ below the rivet line that lies at an angle. The other is a line that is 5/8″ up from the bottom of the skin.

The plans then tell you to bevel the two edges of a 2″x4″x24″ board at 45° angles. I then cut two 24″ pieces out of the angle I just bought.

I then clamped the skin between the workbench and the beveled 2″x4″ board on the line I drew below the rivet line. With the skin in place I clamped one of the 3/4″ angles to the underside of the skin lined up with the 5/8″ line I drew.

I matched drilled to two outside holes of the skin to the angle so they matched. I removed the angle from the skin and clamped it to the other angle and match drilled the two holes so that the two angles now match the skin. I also had to cut the web on one end of the top angle so that as the skin/angles are rolled that it wouldn’t interfere with the wood.

I replaced the two angles to the skin, checked them and added 3 clamps to hold it all together. I then grabbed my large vise-grips and placed them at the aft end of the angles. I used the vise-grips to rotate the skin slowly. I made this process in several steps rechecking the bend. The goal is to have a conical shape starting with an 1/8″ forward to a larger come aft.

The plans say it’s better to under do the bend than over do it. I stopped short of 90° and was very pleased with how it looked. I removed all the parts and repeated the whole process on the other skin making sure that I did the bend in the proper direction so I ended up with a left and right skin. Before I could put these skins on the seat structure I needed to drill a 2 5/8″ hole in the right outboard seat rib and the right side skin. This will allow a tube for fresh air to run from the NACA vent in the right wing thru to the eyeball vent for the passenger. Van’s punched a hole in both pieces so all I had to do was break out the fly cutter and make the cuts.

With that done I checko’ed the forward and aft outboard ribs in place as well at the edge floor support that runs along the top of those ribs. Now that they were in place I could add the side skins. I was very pleased at how the bend looked when installed.

I then added all the substructure to the side walls including the arm rests, side bulkheads, aft bulkhead, floor side support and gussets.

Another fun day in the Hangar and things really taking shape. Here is a view of the hole fuselage with some skins on. I have to fly the next couple days and have training next week so the build will be on hold for a week and a half but I will hit it hard when I’m back.

Mid Fuselage Side’s

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 4 Hours

Today I started on the fun deburring process of all the parts that make up the mid fuselage side walls including the bulkheads and arm rests.

I then countersunk all the nutplate holes in the various parts that I just deburred. When that was all done I grabbed the side skins down from the ceiling racks where all the flat skins get stored.

I got the soldering iron out and removed the blue film on the exterior side just over the rivet holes. The inside of the skin I removed the entire film as I will be priming and painting the surface as it will be seen in the cockpit area.

That was enough for today. Tomorrow I will debur all the skin edges and roll the aft corner of the lower part of the skins. This will make the transition from square to rounded edges for the tail cone.

Longeron Drilling #2

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 6 hours

I finished up the left lower longeron today by removing it and Deburring all the holes and edges. I also deburred the holes in the lower skin and weldements where I had drilled through. One last task before reinstalling the longeron to continue the build was to round over the last 2″ of the aft end of the longeron. This is done so the skin that starts to roll up here makes a nice transition and doesn’t have a sharp corner.

I marked off the section and hit the scotch-brite wheel and made the transition.

I put that longeron back in place with clecko’s and the temporary bolts in the forward section. I also put the 2 flush screws in place at the gear tower weldement. When I was done with that I repeated the entire process on the right side with nice results. I then grabbed the spacer that goes between the gear tower weldement and the gear tower plate and deburred both the left and right one. I also reamed all the 1/8″ holes in the gear weldement to clean out all the powder coating. I then placed the aux longeron, spacer and plate in position on the left side. You clecko from the inside to make it easier to put the skins on for fitting. I repeated the process for the right side but had an issue. When everything was in place the aft end of the longeron was almost a 1/4″ higher than the gusset it will be riveted to.

After discussions with my buddy Glen we decided that it was the spacer that was preventing the longeron from settling where it needed to be. My guess is that the weldement is off just a little and it’s tweaking it a little. So my fix was to shave off a little of the spacer so the longeron could slide down as needed. I made several small attempts at this until I got it just right and the fit was good.

After match drilling a few holes on the mid-braces I separated the center section from the forward section and cleaned up all the mess.

The next step in the plans are to build out the walls of the seat section including the skins, vertical bulkheads and arm rests. I took some time and located all the parts for this section.

That’s where I called it a day as all those parts need deburring which I will get to in the next couple days. Another good day and Fall is playing nice with beautiful weather.