Fuselage

My new F-783B-L bracket arrived today from Vans. 1 hour, 20 min. later it was deburred, drilled, prepped and primed, and riveted in place.

Feels good to have this done!

Next, I fabricated the F-904J spacers from a piece of tubing. Just follow the plans exactly. These have to be exactly 1-7/16" long. So you cut them a little long, and chuck them in the drill press and sand the end flat on a piece of sandpaper a little at a time until you have the exact length. I cleaned them up, scuffed them up with some scotchbrite and primed them. Priming is super easy. I shook up my can of primer and dipped them in it on a wire hook. No muss, no fuss.

I spent the next couple of hours working on the control stick parts. Some minor filing or grinding is necessary to get them to fit together right. I ran the reamer through the bolt holes so the bolts would fit. The powdercoating process leaves them too tight to push a bolt through. The brass bushings you see in the middle are just like the aileron bellcranks. In the shot above, I have polished them on the fine scotchbrite wheel, reamed them out with my 1/4" reamer so the bolts will go through them, and shortened them to size in the same way as I did the spacers above, so they just fit. We'll see how all this stuff goes together tomorrow.

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