Chapter 6 – Fuselage Assembly
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I enjoyed this part – actually assembling a structure. I bought some tie-down straps from Harbor Freight for $2.50 each, and they worked great holding the pieces in place.
Sides still in cradle and F22, fireall in position. This wasnÕt too hard, but popping the sides from their cradles left big gouges in the foam (described earlier). |
Sides held together while flox cures. Also a good shot of my cruddy garage floor – it has some type of disease that causes it to bubble up, peel and ablate into pieces. Need a new garage! |
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Fuel selector valve bracket |
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And plywood cutouts |
Finished FS valve bracket – note how the little
rivet dudes hold the machine screw anchors in place. I just tapped the rivets flat with a
thick nail set. |
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Carving foam for plywood insert. Just hacking it out with hacksaw blade and chisel. |
LG Bulkheads floxed in place. I measured these against M-drawings many times, and yet somehow the forward bulkhead is too
short at top (not shown). DoesnÕt
quite reach to the spar cutout |
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Bottom
bondo-d to 1x2s. Later
on, somehow there is a 1/8Ó difference in height at F-22, and so thereÕs a
slight twist to the fuselage bottom.
I notice it, not sure how
much of a problem it will be, but this is where it was introduced |
Another angle |
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45* cut-out of speed brake. Saber saw worked well. |
Micro-gluing spacers in place. I used my harbor freight bandsaw to cut the spacers in
segments – this went much smoother, with much better results than the
manual method used for the side spacers. |
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