Fuselage

The plans call for making two pairs of spacers, the F-796C & D spacers, out of .063 and .032 sheet aluminum. I have plenty of .032" laying around and in my scrap pile, but I couldn't find any .063" stock. I searched through my inventory and the lists and scratched my head trying to figure out what I'm supposed to use for these parts. There are some nice long pieces of .063" stock in my inventory, but they're specific lengths of material and I'm not willing to risk cutting a piece out of them in case they're needed for something else. They just look like they're made for something else. So I finally used a scrap piece of .063" thick 3/4 X 3/4 aluminum angle, cutting 1/2" off each side of the angle with my bandsaw. What can I say. It worked.

Here are the 2 pairs of spacers, with the first hole drilled as per the plans. Below them are the F-796B angle stiffeners. I had to do some additional trimming to get them to fit in place on the fuselage. The edge distance isn't ideal, but looking at the location and how this part fits in there, I don't see how anything can be done to improve it.

Here's the left side angle fitted in place and drilled to the F-902 bulkhead. The spacers I made are behind this part, and they fill the gap since the ends of this angle lap up on top of the longerons above and below. I hope that makes sense.

Next, I pulled all the parts from my inventory for the rudder pedal/brake pedal assembly, and spent some time deburring the ends of the rudder pedal weldments. These are nice parts, but it's obvious they don't take the time to deburr them before putting on the powder coating. I'll have more pictures next time.

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