Fuse, part 2 of many

Bending longerons. Those words create fear, at least they did for me. I don't care to beat things with hammers, so I borrowed some longeron bending dies. I added scotch tape to the longerons and spread a thin coat of biolube from the aviation isle of  REI. I didn't have a good vise, so I used c-clamps and the old wing crate as a table. I taped the plan's template to the side of the crate. This worked out well.

Using the c clamps, I did the first pass moving the dies about 1 1/2" at a time. For the first longeron I had help and it went well with very little out of plane bending, but I went thru 12 "el cheapo" c-clamps. For the second longeron, I bought three drop forged c clamps. These are still usable afterwards so worked out better. The rear bend is actually much tighter than the rest, so I had to use three pieces of 1/64" model airplane ply to increase the bend radius of the die.

The second longeron bent easier using the better c clamps, but I had much more out of plane bending. Using some scrap wood and a 2" piece of drain pipe, I was able to roll the bend back into plane. Both are well with the 1/16" tolerance.

Fuse, part 1

In looking at various build logs of others who have gone before, it seems the fuse takes just as long as the tail and wings combined. So I decided to use a gifted surplus Hobbs meter to keep track of my build time. Now I am depressed; my per week build time is no where near what I expected. So I have abandoned the Hobbs and am just trying to spend any free time on the plane. Anyone want to come by and paint a house while I build?

The big decision was whether to paint the interior pieces that show at this time. After much hemming and hawing, I have taken other's advice and decided to prime everything as I go and then re-prime and paint once the fuse is together. The crevices in seat back brackets will be hard to get to once assembled, so I will leave those cleco'd for now; those will end up having exposed rivets. This plan prevents me from having to worry about scuffing the paint during the build.

So the fuselage bulkheads are ready for assembly. The decision to prime did not add too much work, but it did add confusion. The various steps to prep the bulkheads had to be stopped while I built up a stack of parts to prime. This priming session was a long one, but went fairly quick.

Lawn Art: