Making Progress

With my school almost done, I am making progress at a faster rate.

I have joined the center section with the tailcone.

Here I am rolling the conical bend in the side skin.

And the side skins are on!

Looking from front to back.

 

Just a few more pictures of the fuselage.

 

Here is a picture showing the conical bend.

DJ

Back to Work

Well, we finally got the longerons cut, curved, bent, notched, and twisted. I also did a few things on the center section and the tailcone to prepare them to be attached to one another.

Bending the longerons was basically whacking the longeron with a four-pound mallet. Then you would compare it to the template then whack it some more. Kind of a tedious process. 

This is how I cut the longerons. I clamped a piece of scrap on the longeron to use as a guide for the hacksaw. I didn't want to use any power tools on this.

Here I was drilling the canopy deck to the longeron.

 

 

This how we applied the sharp downward bend and twist.

The complete longerons.

 

The next order of business will be (temporarily) attaching the tailcone to the fuselage and working on the forward fuselage. 

DJ

More Center Section Work.

Well, kind of. Dad and I got the bottom skin riveted onto the center section.  It's about time to bend the longerons, something I've put off until now. After that is done I will fit it to the tailcone.

For those of you who are not aircraft builders, this is where you will sit. It is also where the wings attach.

Making Progress

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, but I've been working on the project a bit. we finished riveting the bottom and side skins on the tailcone.

 And I started on the center
 section.

Pictures

We got the part for our computer so we now have internet on both computers.

Here are some of the bulkheads.


I had quite the time trying to get these pieces to fit. The bottom skin was not properly bent from the factory so we used the same method on it as we did to bend the leading edge of the rudder. However, since it is over twice as thick, we were going to break the broomstick so we use a big metal pipe and a pipe wrench.


All drilled. Now I get to take it apart and debur everything.


DJ

Update

It's been a long time since my last post. I finished the bulkheads and am working on the tailcone now. We just got back from the Badlands Fly-in. We had a great time there. I'll get some pics up after we get a part for our other computer. Oh, we are now on fiber optic internet! 6 mbps download and .5 mbps upload. Way faster than satellite. Although the new system is responsible for frying the Ethernet port on the other computer which is the reason I'm not posting pictures. I'm hoping the bugs are fixed. I hope to have pictures up on Wednesday.

DJ

Bulkhead Work

I've been getting a chance to work on my project again. I have finished the F-705 Bulkhead as well as the next two back. (more specifically F-706 and F-707.)

F-705

















F-706.


Well, I better get back to work.

DJ