Chapter 6 Chapter 6 is where the real fun begins. For anyone who has made model airplanes, the drill is pretty familiar:
Seems pretty simple when you put it this way, of course, in a model airplane, if you make things a little less precise than required you can just add lumps of clay (free flight) or adust the trim (RC) until everything flies just right. If you crash once or twice during the process, c'est la vie. For the cozy, we hope to do a little better; or at least have the life insurance paid up before the first flight!

Below are a few pictures and comments taken as I go along.
First fuselage setup while still in "formers"
 Initial assemply of fuselage formers (bulkheads) and sides. A fair amount of trimming was required to make a good fit. The templates (especially the cutouts for the front seat) where not precise enough to ensure a good fit without further adjustment. Unfortunately, F-22 has a very slight bow that needs to be corrected. Less than 1/8" total bow, but still like tight underwear: IRRITATING.
Initial fuselage layup whilst still in jigs
 Just another view of the initial fuselage setup. It doesn't show well here but I am actually pleased with the fit of the bulkheads to the fuselage sides. F-22 is held in by the usual 3mm nails (1/8" for the US). The piston in the background is from an old 18 wheeler diesel engine from when I was a metallurgy student. Never thought that it would one day be used essentially as a paperweight. You can also see my oil heaters to keep the garage warm during the winter months. This year has been a kind of cold winter in France.
View of the initial fuselage assembly from the rear
 Same as before but from the other side. I guess like most other builders, I have the ubiquitous fein multimaster which seems to be everpresent.
Goodbye jigs...at last! At long last, beginning to get rid of the fuselage side jigs. They've been with me for almost a year; glad to see them go. It will also be nice to reclaim a large, flat table for other layups. In a limited basement space, every little bit helps.
first trial assembly, it looks like a broken canoe
FINALLY, SOMETHING THAT IS BEGINING TO LOOK LIKE IT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BECOME A COZY!

February 22, 2006, the first trial assembly of the fuselage. Things went together surprisingly well.

I thought seriously about building the fuselage upside down on the table as so many others have done. A very logical way to do it but unfortunately for me, the table in the background is so beefed up that cutting out a hole in the table for the instrument panel is virtually impossible. I' decided to use the plans technique. Seems to have worked for a lot of other people.

I first measured the gap between the transverse 2x4s and had a huge shock, 7mm of difference between the left and right sides. What in the name of hades have I done. How could I be so stupid. This will never fly, I am a complete failure. Wait, maybe the sides are right and the frame I put together in one night is slightly off. Bring out the measuring tape, breath a big sigh of relief, it is only the wooden holding frame which is off. It turns out that I missed my 90° angles slightly and instead had 90.0° on one end and 89.66° on the other end. OOPS! Easier to fix the frame than lengthening or shortening the fuselage.
ham! No cozy web site is complete without a least one picture of the builder hamming it up! It does seem to be a 'cozy' fit. One more reason to keep on losing weight. (17 kilos in the last six months)
During the construction of the bottom, I took no pictures! It turned out very nicely. Here is a picture of the tub bottom prior to putting it in place. I made one modification, instead of using the 'last a foam,' I instead used the same divinyl cell that I used elsewhere in the fuselage sides and bottom. (I ran out of the 'last a foam' and having a small piece shipped from the US to France just seemed like a waste of money; particularly in light of the fact that Nat has said that the choice of 'last a foam' was motivated by price)
Seat back in place.
Heating duct in place.
The manual said to use lots of flox.
STRAIGHT and LEVEL.
(The SmartTool is very reassuring)
I didn't like the idea of adding lots of weight to compress the flox so I instead used a lot of clamps. Worked very well but now I have enough clamps to last a lifetime.
Bottom in place, no major problems found after the resin had cured. Subsequent checks verified that everything was still 'Straight, Level and Square'
Beginning to round the fuselage in preparation for chapter 7. (sometimes it is impossible to resist moving ahead a little bit)
Out of sequence, but the lower firewall is finally in place. I had a slight problem in that the landing gear bulkheads, while seperated by exactly 8 inches were actually 6mm to far back. A call to Nat was in order. I asked whether it would be better to preserve the 5 inch dimension between the firewall and rear landing gear bulkhead and the expense of a 6mm longer fuselage or instead reduce the 5 inche dimension. Nat said it didn't really matter; either choice was good and that the original cozy had a 3 inch separation which was later increased to 5 inches just to ease the building process. I decided to reduce the 5 inch dimension by 6mm. (I know, I'm mixing units but it is a hasard of building an American design in France)