Fuselage

Today I continued working on the Baggage Compartment. It's Memorial Day, so Vans is closed and I can't go get the part I ruined yesterday, but I can still continue working on the baggage compartment. The forward side panels, F-749's, need to be trimmed on the top surface. So I ran them through the band saw and then cleaned them up and deburred them, then fitted them in place. The fit was perfect.

Remember, this is all upside down, but you can see the baggage side panels clecoed in place. This will be nice when it's all finished and painted.

Well, according to the manual, that's about it on the forward fuselage. I appear to be at the stage where this is all ready to be dismantled for deburring, dimpling, priming, etc. before riveting it back together. The manual has a simple note at this point, saying there is a laundry list of small things that need to be done before final riveting. I looked, and I can't find this list anywhere. So you must be on your own at this point to create the list yourself. It confused and frustrated me for a minute. So I thought I would be patient and study the drawings one more time for each part before taking it off the plane. I spent quite a bit of time studying the drawings. Good thing I did...

A while back, I installed the gear leg brackets temporarily in order to cut the holes in the bottom forward skin where the tubes protrude through it. But a careful study of the drawing shows that the sides need to be drilled to the lower longeron and side and bottom skins. Bolts will hold this bracket in place where shown above. The manual says nothing about this, but now is the logical time to drill these holes. So I took the bottom skin off and temporarily bolted the brackets back in place. Then I put the bottom skin back on. Remember... this stuff is all still upside down.

The skin is back on and my drill is ready. These holes have to be drilled to #12 for AN3 bolts. But I'm out of time tonight. I'll pick up here tomorrow.

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