Forward Fuselage (Chapter 7)

The saga of the forward fuselage construction continues.  You put the parts on, mark them, and then you remove them.  Trim, trim, trim, cut, cut, cut, file, file, file, fit fit fit........

It does get a little tedious and annoying.  I want to make progress and get flying while I am still on this planet.

But, as with all things worth waiting for, it takes time and patience to construct an airplane.  Let's face it.  If it were easy everyone would be doing it.  

So after numerous times on and off I had marked up the front side skins and decided to start hanging some more parts.

There are lots of skin stiffeners, so I got to measuring and cutting some of the material to fit in the cockpit area.

I squared everything up with the HRL and bulkheads.  They fit pretty good.

Here is the forward skin clamped to the side of the plane.  Prior to putting the skin back in place I used a number 41 drill and match drilled the skin.

I clamped the pre-drilled skin in place and squared it to my reference lines.

Here is the right side skin in Cleco-ed in place.  Once I had the skin clamped in place I drilled the number 41 holes out to a number 40 size and Clecoed every hole as I went.

When the was done I went over the skin with a Sharpie marker and marked it all up to what size rivets go where.  Next I drilled the number 40 holes out to number 30 where needed.

Here I am doing to the left side as I had previously done to the right.  Being sure my drill is perpendicular to the skin and angle aluminum.  Baby steps.

 After all the drilling I assembled up the forward fuselage again.  Mounted the firewall, cockpit floor structure, and side channels.

In the rear area I put in the baggage floor, control tunnel, and the station 114.75 bulkhead.

Now it is starting to look like something.  CL and HRL are lining up to easy.  I start to think I may be missing something.

So, there she is.  Half Cleco-ed and half clamped.  Next time I will try and get the motor mounts
drilled to the various forward channels.  It is still going together slow, but that's why they say
slow and steady wins the race.  You just have to keep at it.
Brian