Still prepping fuse parts

For your viewing pleasure here’s the boys enjoying the Blues over Lake Washington earlier this month. As for the project, i’ve been working on it I swear. It’s really just a 1000 little tasks without much visual payoff so I’ll spare you the pics of pretty countersunk holes in a neat little row.

I’m still slowly working through all the final steps before starting the riveting on the main fuse. I’m excited to see if I got a the puzzle pieces made correctly! All the deburring, dimpling, and countersinking including the longerons is done on the internal structures. I’ve primed about 2/3 of these parts. The left forward fuse pieces still need to be etched and primed. The skins still need to be prepped but that should be kinda fun as imam trying to “eat my vegetables”‘first. Also, I have to go back and find a solution for one hole I doubled drilled on a bulkhead. After that I’ll be reassembling the canoe! Work is going to take over this week so hopefully I can hit it hard next weekend. I’m aiming to flip the canoe this fall and order finish kit before the end of the year.

Fuselage Drilling Complete!

All the drilling is finished on the fuselage now and it’s ready to be taken apart! The last week was spent confirming all the holes are drilled to final size, opening up various holes for fuel lines, vents, and wire runs. Technically I still need to drill the bottom of the 902 bulkhead flanges, but not until I remove the bottom forward skin. A lot of edge prep is done for the interior parts so I hope I can get through the prep process quick enough to start priming in the next couple of weeks. I’m not looking forward to countersinking the hundreds of holes in the longerons!

Below are examples of some of the extra holes drilled during the fuse prep:

A bulkhead flange in the baggage area drilled to the longeron

A countersunk hole for a #10 screw on the forward fuselage.

This photo shows the 1 inch hole for the fuel line pass through. The actual fuel line is only about 3/8" but its held in place by a 1 inch rubber grommet that shields it against vibration.

Planecation 2011: Day One

I have this week off from work. The rest of the family is on their normal schedule, so other than some dog walking, I am planning on making some serious headway in the airplane factory. My goal is to finish all the forward fuselage work by the weekend. First up though I need to finish drilling the longerons from the tail all the way up to the 704 bulkhead. This takes Zen-like patience and concentration as there are hundreds of holes and some tricky intersections here and there. I did manage to double drill a hole in the right flange tab of the 710 bulkhead. I’ll report back on the fix later. Pressing on…

I used some bar clamps in the center section area to snug the longerons up to the edge of the 770 side skin.

This isn’t a very good picture but that bottom row of clecos is what I am drilling today on both sides of the fuselage. I took my time and got about 80% done before shutting it down for the evening. A good start but I am looking forward to tomorrow and getting the firewall hung. Time to rest the sore back and butt.

Back to it!

Wow. I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since the last update. I had some work travel and late nights that ate into building time. Today, my friend Ryan came over to help on the center section riveting. This was his introduction to riveting although he’s been flying with me a number of times when I was still renting the Skyhawks and Cherokee. We finished all the seat ribs and the 705 bulkhead. No rivets needed to be drilled out and Ryan did great to avoid leaving any smiles in the skins. We had to leave the baggage rib riveting till next weekend.

I’ve also made contact with a local EAA Tech Counselor to come look over my progress later this month. Looking forward to having some expert eyes on my progress and correct any bad habits.

I’m also including some pics of notching the longeron because they were still on the camera when I downloaded today’s pics. The picture above shows the notch marked and the punch marks for drilling the radius holes.

Here’s the notch after drilling and roughing out the rest of the notch. After filing it was ready to go. The longerons are now in position waiting to receive the rest the of the fuselage pieces for final drilling.

Return of the Longerons

No pics to post tonight, but a quick update of progress for the week. The longerons are now notched and in position on the fuselage assembly. Everything looks well aligned. I’ll know more when I get the side skins attached soon. I also went back and prepped the rudder cable egress in aft fuselage. The hex screw dimpler from Avery’s worked perfectly here. I also started collecting and roughing out the pieces for the forward fuselage assembly and misc. parts prep. This boring stuff will continue until I can get the center skin riveted.

Big Moves

The fuselage is now so big that I have resorted to panoramas to show it in profile. The weather cooperated on Saturday, so I was able to prep and prime the 776 Center section skin. Paul, my trusted rivet partner, won’t be coming over till next week to help me rivet the skin to the skeleton. Instead I concentrated on a number of lingering little tasks. I lightly ran the countersink over the dimpled holes on the bottom of the 704 bulkheads. I primed the 2 spacer tubes and all the bare aluminum on the 704 that had lost its alodine coating. My biggest task was to figure out what to do with a poorly set rivet in the seat rib/705/baggage rib interface. The centermost ribs are the most problematic. Chad H. is a few months ahead of me in his build (and he only started a year ago!) warned me of his frustration get rivets set in there. Drilling out this rivet is a real pain. I had to do it backwards and drill out the shop head. Here goes nothin…

And of course I screwed it up. The hole got elongated pretty good. I ended up drilling out for an AN3 bolt as shown in the pic above. The edge distance is pretty tight but I think it’s barely in spec. I’ll point this repair out in my tech counselor visit just to be sure.

Those longerons I made many moons ago are about to be assembled into the fuselage. Ahead of that I need to notch them. Two big bars of aluminum stick out here. The horizontal stabilizer will get attached to the bars. Overall I made pretty good progress this weekend. Lots of big pieces getting put in place quickly.

Canopy Deck Rails

Finished the Longerons, for now, by fitting and drilling the canopy rails. Instructions say to cut out the slit for the HS attach bars, but I am going to hold off until I fit the tail section together for a more accurate fit.

The pair together. Lovely.

The Big Bend

Well the big day came and went with very little drama. The longerns are bent to spec and it was a pretty simple affair. Another shout out to the VAF Forums for introducing me to the Orndorff Method. You can review the specifics in the VAF thread link or get the videos straight form George and Becki. The advantage of this method is that the bent angle doesn’t bend in unwanted directions. Also it was easy to get two matching longerons.

All was not perfect though, as I gouged the angle in a few areas from the corner of the vice. I made some thin aluminum sleeves for the vise because the rubber grips I’ve been using just wouldn’t hold the angle in place. Unfortunately, the aluminum sleeves didn’t always protect the corner of the vise and it dinged the angle. I should be able to scuff them out and move on.

Up next will be canopy deck rails and perhaps a switch to finishing the QB wings before moving on with the fuse. Also, between the fuse longerons and stringers and the parts that need to be done for the QB wing, I see a serious priming session with some very long parts coming.

Another view showing the twist on the forward ends.

In the vise making the forward downward bends for each longeron.

The 4 inch vise with aluminum sleeves in place.

Setting Up The Longerons

The project hours are harder to come by in the new year. But I’ve been able to sneak out to get the longerons set up for the big bend. I clamped them together with 1/4″ wood spacers in between the angles. At the forward end the wood spacer stuck out so that the 1″ mark on the tape measure lines up with the end of the angle. After I marked up the angle based on the drawing 18 notes, I notched the top aft end of the lognerons per drawing 18.

To make sure the measurements were accurate, I started at the 1" mark.

With both angles clamped together, it was easy to make sure the measurements matched on each longeron.

Note to self: DO NOT forget to add an inch to all your measurements!

The notches on the aft ends were pretty simple as long as I didn't rush it.