Getting back to work

Wow, looks like it has been over 6 months since I posted! While I haven't been terribly busy with the airplane, I have managed to put in a little time here and there and finished up chapter 5 about a month ago. Did all the prep work for putting the fuselage sides together and finally got it actually put together today.

Here's the firewall, sides and F-22 test fit:

Had some help during the work with the newest addition to the family. Julia helped some too, it made life a lot easier to have an extra pair of hands for a couple of parts


Everything in place, used the plans method to squeeze the sides together, and used dry wall screws as well. Really didn't have too many gaps, test fitting everything on the jigs helped a lot and a bit of luck didn't hurt either. Only real gap I had to work with was on the bottom of the starboard side of the seat back.

Everything looking good and level.

Now to leave it alone for 24 hours

LWX & LWY/Electrical Conduit

I've read of a lot of people having issues with the angles and lengths of LWX and LWY. Thankfully, I was able to learn from their issues and had relatively little trouble in putting the pieces in place. Basically I cut everything a little bit oversized and over angled and then sanded till I had a good fit. Also, instead of using nails to hold them in place I used drywall screws. After everything had cured I removed the screws and filled the holes with flox.

Port:

Starboard:

A closeup of the joint between LXY and LWY:

For the electrical conduit I followed the plans and formed a male plug which I covered with box tape. After taping the plug and the board I would be working on, I put one ply bid over the plug:

Then covered with peel ply:

Here's the conduit extension on top of the foam :

And five-minute epoxied in place:

Now I just need to place the foam around the conduit, add 6 plies of Bid, fix one minor repair area on the upper longeron and cut the sides to size and I'll be finished with ch. 5. Hopefully by next Wednesday!

Lower Longeron Doublers

The lower longeron doublers were pretty easy. The idea is to provide a square section for strength and to create the area for the electrical conduit area. Basically just floxing another triangular piece of spruce onto the lower longeron.

I used lots of clamps -

And the finished product -

Upper Longerons Glassed and Lower Longerons in place

It's been a while since I posted due to a wonderful new addition to the family - Alyssa Faith Bennett was born on September 11 and has been keeping us all pretty busy. I have been able to get a little bit of work done though. I got the upper longerons glassed:


Then cut and placed the lower longerons. I used the method of cutting little blocks of wood to get a good clamp on as well as pre-drilled holes for nails to hold everything in its proper place.
Starboard side:

And Port:

Fuselage sides glassed

I completed glassing the fuselage sides (interior) tonight. As I've read, it did end up taking a while. I started at 2100 (or 9 o'clock pm) and didn't finish until 01:30. I didn't realize how long it was taking until Julia came out at 0000 (or 12am) to see how I was doing. I'd just finished the first ply of uni! All in all, it was a pretty easy layup. I'd prepared everything before starting, so that helped a lot. I did spend a good deal of time on the areas where the spacers meet the other foam, but I'm afraid that I'll still end up with an air bubble or two. Should be pretty easy to fix any problem areas though. As I finished at 0130(midday in my day), I've been out there every couple of hours and only seen one possible problem area where the spacers meet the foam on the aft end of the starboard side. We'll see....

Fuselage Sides Spacers & Control Stick Indentions

The last couple of weeks I've been working on sanding the spacers to their proper dimensions. Here they are micro'd on to the fuselage sides:

The electrical conduit cutouts:

The upper longerons are there just to make sure that they fit properly. I've also sanded out the control stick depressions.

I tied my sharpie to a piece of 4" metal hanging wire (seen in upper right corner of pic) attached to a nail to get a somewhat perfect circle. I used same said nail to verify that the depression was a 1/4" deep by marking a line at where the top of the foam met the nail, and then measuring a 1/4" down from there. As soon as I saw the second blue line on the nail, I knew that I'd made it a 1/4". Also laid a ruler across the depression to verify consistency of depth across the depression.

I've marked out the depression for my Vance Atkinson fuel gauges, and will sand those out tonight. Hope to get everything glassed in the next day or two. I've read that it can be a rather large lay up, so will likely devote a whole day to it.

Fuselage sides

Started work on the fuselage sides and got the masonite placed on the jigs, foamed 5-min epoxied to the masonite and cut out the spacers, although I haven't completed sanding the spacers to the proper angles.

My masonite:
Nailed down to the jigs:
I cut the foam and masonite before doing all the jig work:
5-min epoxying the foam to the masonite:
And some of the foam spacers laid out: