EAA Tech Support & More Formers

On Friday evening I had a visit from an EAA Technical Counselor. It was his initial visit. Having an EAA Tech Counselor come over helps to insure you understand what you are doing. They offer guidance, tips, help from other builders, and good moral mental support for those tough decisions you are going to have to make during the project.

Well, the Tech Counselor said the riveting looked pretty good and the project was well on it's way. The rivets looked pretty good because I had help from my significant other, Christine.

Here's a shot of Christine using a 3X pneumatic rivet gun. She did a great job. Thanks Chrissy!

Christine had no problem with the universal head rivets. The flush head rivets are another story. They are tough.

Here are the parts for the last fuselage former assembly. They end up connecting to the last two formers on the fuselage, stations 205 & 209. I can't remember the station number for the life of me, but I think it is 194.609.

The vertical fin and the horizontal stabilizers connect to this former and the last two. Again, and I can not stress this enough, look over the prints very carefully. The details of how the assembly goes together are there. You just have to look at all the prints. (Several times.)

This is the aft end of the aircraft. The tail wheel mounts on the last two formers, the smaller two. It bolts onto the bottom of them.

I still have to install the brackets for the vertical stabilizer, nut plates, debur, counter sink & dimple on some areas, and corrosion protect each part of the assembly. Then finally rivet together.

I will complete the riveting when I build the fuselage assembly. That will occur after the bottom skin is installed on the center section & the CS is in the jig for assembling the fuselage. Ugh! More work to do.

Later,

Brian

Fuselage Formers

The months of June and July went by fast. We had two summer storms that knocked out power to my father-in-law twice in a two week period. It didn't help his failing health and it took up most of our time. He is doing better for now, but we don't know how long he will be this good. We take it day by day.

Now let's talk about the Mustang II. Well, while waiting for the EAA Tech Counselor this last week, I went fuselage former crazy!

I was able to drill, debur, corrosion protect, and assemble most of the fuse formers. Each former has about 6 to 8 hours in it depending on how complex it was.

So, from bottom to top they are fuselage station formers, 114.75, 138.0, 162.0, & 187.5. These were all fairly straight forward. Most of the rivet holes were matched drilled & the parts were nicely formed. I completed these formers in about 6 days. 114.75 took about a day and a half. The zinc chromate (green) ones with the corner shear webs, I ended up making my own webs for. The ones from MII were a bit to small & the rivet holes ended up too close to the edge. (Not good!)

These are formers 205 & 209. This assembly is made up of about eight parts. Lots of measuring, locating the parts and where they go. The tail wheel & horizontal stabilizer attache to this assembly.

There is a very specific order of operations when assembling multiple parts like this. Any missed step and you can damage a part and make it useless.

Then you have to improvise.

My case in point. This is part #250.357, front fin spar doubler. The one on the left is from MII. I cut the large slot the elevator push rod passes through then I tried to bend the edges up 90 degrees. As you can see the part was a miserable failure.

The part on the right I cut from flat stock, bent the edges, cut the slot, then I used the plywood cut out and a hammer to shape the flange. It came out perfect. (Just needs a little adjusting.)

Tomorrow I hope to work on station 194.609. It attaches to the 205/209 assembly. According to the prints it looks like fun!

Next post I'll write about the EAA Tech Counselor visit.

Later,

Brain