Framing it up

Time to start building the fuselage.


The first of the engine pylon frames.

As always, advice from others told me to stuff a hunk of foam into the tail boom tube to stop drafts.

After adding a nutplate I hung the boom from the rafters

and attached the front to the bulkhead assembly. Surprisingly small (AN4-7) bolts.

Before I started the rest of the frame I had ordered 4' of 1" nylon rod. A friend turned it down to 0.89" and I got to learn how to use a lathe and further turned various pieces down to .86", .74" and .64".

These pieces are cut down further, drilled for a bolt and inserted into the ends of the frame tubing.When I take the stab and elevator apart for the LSA reinforcement parts I'll add them in too.

This keeps the tubing from being inadvertently crushed when bolts are tightened too much. Here the boom support tubes have been fitted to the cluster bracket.

This was a good, relaxing day. A couple friends stopped by occasionally to help and talk, it was one of the last sunny days so I had the doors open, and after pushing my knee too hard in a PT exercise last week it was feeling pretty good again.The wood floor was a great idea.

(Almost) good as new

Little by little...

lots of sanding....

the hull is patched.

The best piece of advice I've gotten was don't be afraid to go back and do something over. I had waterproofed the root rib with spar varnish but was advised that the covering material would not stick to varnish. So I had to demount the rib, sand the varnish off and apply a coat of epoxy.

I also took the opportunity to cut some lightening holes in, and removed 1.75# of weight.

I knew the sanding was going to be a messy job and I wanted to get it done while I could still open the doors.
Now I can push the hull out of the way, move the bulkhead into the center of the hangar and get going on the assembly of the frame.

Patching things up

I haven't posted for a while but it doesn't mean I haven't been working. For the last month I've been working on patching the section of the hull that was damaged in shipping.

I tried to feather the damaged section back but it was pretty obvious I needed to just clean it up.

I mixed up some West Systems epoxy and laid a piece of 4" cloth on the inside of the hull. Then I added some thickener to part of the resin, filled in the sections I had cut out, folded over the cloth on the outside to make a sandwich and covered it with Saran Wrap, carefully smoothing the glass down to squeeze out extra resin and make the cloth conform.

A simple clamp set up.

And after a couple days to dry...

Next came the real fun. Sanding.

It's been a long process from the first coat

Onward. I'm sure that someone who knew what they were doing could have whipped it out a lot faster, but it' been fun to sit in the sun and work on the airplane.

Even when things came out... less than perfect, let's say.

But it's getting there.