Chapter 6

Fuselage Assembly

As with all the chapters this seemed like it would be quick and easy, but there was always something left to be doing. But at the end I would have a tub something that would resemble an actual airplane! Well Almost!

Construction starts you off fitting the bulkheads, since I moved my workshop indoors and with the new baby, I have been working alone (I can't wait for some help!!!) Fitting the bulkheads was a little difficult without assitance, but not impossible. All of my bulkheads seemed to fit well, with the exception of the seat back. It came up about 1/5" too short. I planned to add foam and glass so I made the shortage on the bottom where it would be out of view. After fitting I the major bulkheads, I proceeded to the temporary firewall. With that in place I was ready to flox the first parts together. This turned out to be real sloppy, and flox went everywhere, no big deal just a lot of cleanup. Taping was a major chore, there are lots of joints to tape, and taping is quite boring.

After the tub was built it was time to build the heat duct and seat back brace. This would have gone a little smoother but I goofed and glassed the wrong side of one of the pieces of the heat duct. Hmmmm...time to recut?? No! I just used it as is, now one side has a lot more glass than it is supposed to, just a little stronger and a little heavier. Everything else went smooth with the exception of installation. I decided instead of assembling the brace on the duct and curing I opted to build it in place. This worked out very well and cut a cure day out of my life...this is always good.

Finally, it was bottom time, There are a lot of spacers to cut for this. I used John Slades method of cutting the foam spacers. Too cool, thanks John! I went ahead and put the additional layer of bid covering from the back seats forward, my thinking is that my kids don't always listen and I would hate for them to break my toy!

Attaching the bottom was quite a time consumer...again without help. I floxed the longerons and flipped the bottom onto the tub. I needed a lot of weights to get it all the way down (funny I thought that is why I built the jig?) But after 24 hours, it was complete and I could move on to shaping this bad boy! Next chapter I get to sit in it and make propellor noises!!

Fuselage Jigged (Big clamps!)	Fuselage Jigged
Level Side to Side	Level Front to Back
Bottom With Spacers