Saturday, July 14, 2018

Fuse, part 3

So I am working on the aft fuselage. Like many others, I had trouble with the F779 bottom fuse skin at the rear. This is really thick and pre bent. Well sort of.  I had trouble getting the prepunched holes to lie up between the F779 and the bulkheads F710, F711, and F712. I was determined to have these pieces fit without inviting my neighbor, Mr Armstrong, to come over. Finally got it all lined up.

The trick was tweaking F779. First I made a jig to get the sides bent more by hitting it with a rubber mallet on the end; I tried using a piece of pipe on the bends, but this didn't do much. Then I used the rolling trick from the rudder build to finish bending the curve to 90 degrees. The metal has a lot of spring back, so I couldn't due this by hand. Everything fits well now.