The Fuselage kit
comprises several bulkhead subkits, skins and parts you must fabricate
yourself. After spending a good amount of time fitting, match-drilling,
fluting, dimpling, deburring, and cutting parts just like with the wings
and empennage, several parts were primed at once.
|
|
Now for the real
work....we begin with the center bulkhead. This is the bulkhead to which
the wing spars attach. Several of the holes needed to be drilled to
accomodate some bolts.
|
A drill press comes in
handy for reaming the core of some brass shafts.
|
Our next bulkhead is the
one that will be behind the seats in the plane. Clecoed together it looks
like this.
|
Ted Santuae, former Navy
carrier pilot, helps us rivet these pieces.
|
Coincidentally, this is also
the bulkhead to which the seatbelt anchors attach. Each gets two brackes,
two bolts, washers and locknuts.
|
Ell-if-I-know!
|
One washer was a bit too
wide to fit. We ground off the edge a bit with a grinding wheel.
|
Done.
|
|
Our next series of
bulkheads are horseshoe-shaped. These are the cross-sections of the aft
cone. On the left - Kurt Noltensmeyer assists us in adding some rivets.
Each bulkhead gets rivets at the top and at the bottom.
|
Done!
|
Back towards the front
of the plane, the firewall is the last component to separate the cabin
from the engine.
|
Being stainless steel,
this part required a little more time to match-drill.
|
So how does it all get
aligned? These long pieces of aluminum you see above are the longerons.
Spanning the length of the fuselage, these pieces provide the alignment of
aft fuselage cone and center section. They each require two tricky bends
in them.
|
To the right is the
template used for creating the bend in these pieces.
|
|
|
On the left: several clamps are
used to fit this piece to another.
Above and to the right: these
parts are match-drilled.
|
|
|
It's important to keep a clean
shop when you are working on the fuselage. |
|