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Fuselage >
Section 29 : Fuse Side Skins
Fuse Side Skin 2/28/2012 - 3/11/2012
Finish riveting skins. Chris Walters helped out on the rivets I could not do myself including the rear bottom skin, and both front bottom skins.  Plane got dropped down to floor once I got sideskins on. I got the spar wheel supports from Brian & Brandi as their 10 is on it's gear. Had my first EAA Tech Councelor visit. He signed off that the workmanship looked good. I was really glad to hear that, as I have not had much contact with experianced builders, just with other first time builders. I thought my workmanship was OK, but it is nice to have it confirmed.  Installed sound insulation in the forward floorboards.  Pop Riveted floorboards on and installed gear mounts. Getting all the bolts in the gear mounts, especially the lower ones was a slow and difficult task. Finally ended up with this process. It took 2 hours to do the first side, then only 1/2 hr to do the second after I had it figured out.  I used a drill with a chain of flex and extension drives with a socket on the end to spin the bolt. Please make sure to look at the directions as to what and where the washers go, because not all the bolts have the same washers, or same positions.  Hard to see in this picture, but I used a flexible gripper hand to place the washers on the bolts. The grip would hold a washer on its edge. I had tried magnetic wand, but as the washer touched the bolt it would just stick and then fold over. I then used a wrench on a stick to get the bolt on. I have not yet torc'ed the bolts as I could not get my torc wrench on the nuts. I am probably going to cut the side out of a socket so that it can slip over the bolt. Assembled and match drilled, deburred and dimpled rear air vents. Had to wait for more pieces to prime, so did the steps and forward fuselage. Riveted and final assembled them. Used the dental floss trick to get the washers and peices aligned. (thread all pieces with dental floss. Pull tight to align pieces, then slide in bolt. after bolt in, then pull out dental floss). |
Fuse Side Skin 2/6/2012 - 2/27/12
 Boy this section starts off SLOW. Bending the main Logerons 1013 and 1046. It took me 6 hours to measure, cut and bend 4 parts. Every time you bend it in the direction you want (X-Y) it also bends in the Z axis. You then straighten the Z axis and it is no longer correct in the X-Y. So after hours of back and forth you finally get it correct in all 3 axis.  Then you spend a few hours rearanging the shop to get to your table saw and woodworking tools so that you can make a specifically formed bending brace.  You then spend another couple hours building the angle brace to do the bending with, and bending the rear skins. Total time 8 hours, total piece count 6. (And they are not match drilled or deburred yet).  Now all that time seems worth it as you put the skin on and the fuselage looks much larger and more substancial.  Closeup of sharp bend where it meets the flat side/bottom skins.  Logerons, mid fuselage decks (door sills) and back seat support assembled and match drilled.  Both rear skins on and match drilled. Logerons match drilled.  Bending the forward supports.(1040,1041). You have to put a 20 deg and 8 deg bend in them to follow the bend of the forward fuselage. To get a 20 deg bend to set, you have to bend it more then 180 deg. Directions call for a cresant wrench, but I found my 4 ft clamp to be much easier. It gave a ton of leverage so it was not hard to twist at all.  After releasing pressure, 20 deg bend is set.  Bent front skins. First you have to reshape the wood bending support. You can't cleco the bending bars on, so you use big clamps (had to run to Lowes to get them). Then I had to shorten the back of the feet of the clamps on a grinder to get them to fit on the bar and not slide off. Both skins are now bent, the forward under-structure assembled, and 3 of the 4 supports match drilled into the weldments. (No final status picure) 2/12/2012 24hrs into side skins. 2/27/2012  Front sideskins on and match drilled. When match drilling the weldments to the 1040 and 1041 make sure that they are fully in (look how the sides of the weldment fit into the bottom of the U of the 1040. I clamped with light pressure the 1040 into the weldment and the holes came out nicely. Saw one builder site where they had to replace a weldment because the holes ended up too close to the edge of the weldment.  All the parts cleaned and Alumipreped ready for priming.  Cut sound insulation for under floorboards. Found a recommendation to cut the material with a electric kitchen knife, the kind you cut turkeys with. This works great. Clean smooth quick cut. We did not have an electric knife, but after I purchased it Dee (my wife) said "Great can we use it in the kitchen after you are done with it". Guess I need to make sure I don't get Proseal or other things all over it. I made templates with computer paper, by just folding the excess on top of itself. Took about 1 min to make a template, then 1 min to trace it on the back of the insulation and cut it with the electric knife.  Riveted all the understructure on. The only hard parts were the forward most holes on the 1040 and 1041. I had only trimmed the firewall stiffeners a slight bit to be able to get a 12" drill on the foward most holes. (As allowed in the manual). But then found that was nowhere near enough to get a rivet gun on them. So I spent probably 3 hrs with files to get the 6 flanges filed down enough to get a rivet gun on the 6 forward most rivets (1 per side per piece).  Attached left skins and riveted. I did proseal arrowned the bottom and forward edges to try to keep oil and water from seeping in. I was able to rivet all of the rear skin, and all but the bottom rivets on the forward skin by myself. There will be a few more on the right side that I probably won't be able to get because of no bagage door on the right side. I have completed about 2/3s of the rear right skin. Probably have 5 more hours to go to finish all the skins. Then I can drop it down onto wheels and sit in it and go vrooom vroom. 2/27/2012 |
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