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

Getting back in the game

For the last three weeks I did not do any building on the plane. Yesterday, I started to get back in the game. Trying to figure out where I left off and what needed to be accomplished next. What a pain!

After cleaning all the saw dust up from the garage, I worked on getting reacquainted with the lower fuselage stringers and the baggage compartment on Tuesday. I called Mustang Aero for more information on the stringer locations. Then I drilled the holes & de-burred.

Today, I started assembling 240.3310 and 240.33111,left and right sides, which are two bulkheads that will attach to station 73.75 on the main spar.

The two sides of each bulkhead are riveted together and to aluminum angles which will be bolted to the main spar with six AN3-6A bolts.

I need to get all of this completed so I can rivet on the bottom skin which will allow me to move to a different phase of building. That would be building the fuselage.

That moves me into more of the aircraft controls. I have a lot of planning I need to think ahead too. I'd really like an auto pilot. So, I need to think about servos and their instillation.

While at Mustang Aero in March I took a look at Chris Tieman's MII aileron servo installation. It is located in the center section wing. (See Picture at right.)

I will also need a servo for pitch control. Not real sure where to turn for better info. I'm still investigating options at this point, but need to figure something out so I can buy and mount the servos properly.

Here is a picture of one of my quick build wet wings at Mustang Aero. Chris will be delivering it to me on his way to Oshkosh in July.

I have to make a wing holder for both wings so I can safely store them while I finish the plane. I have some old machinery lifting straps that will do just great. I just have to make some kind of frame.

Tomorrow, I will be back at work for a few days. Should be able to get my head wrapped around the project on Monday. I need to order a few hardware parts from Wicks Aircraft so I have enough rivets to finish the center wing section.

I hope everyone has a great safe week!

Brian

A Sod Event

Ok, this has nothing to do with building an airplane, but it has everything to do with my time. (Honey do things.)

It started with trying to get the back yard to green up this spring. I ended up putting down 3600 square feet of sod.

We started by roto-tilling part of the back yard. In the end we did the whole thing.

I also ordered 5 yards of soil to fill in the low spots. We didn't get enough soil. We made do.

I probably should have ordered a few more yards of dirt. After we were done, I thought about a sprinkler system since we were watering daily.

The sod company starts cutting sod at the farm at 4 AM. The delivery was suppose to be by 6:30 AM. They didn't arrive until 9 AM. Lots of wasted time waiting.

The big tree's roots were sticking up out of the ground. Instead of covering them with soil and sod I built a free floating deck over them. It is in the shape of an Octagon. It looks pretty good.

So, we got a late start laying the sod. We still had it all down by 3 PM.

There I am watering the green. That was last weekend. This weekend I have been trying to put the deck on the Octagon.

Instead of just putting decking down what do I do? I choose to cut all the decking in the many octagon angles. 22.5, 67.5, and lots of 45 degree cuts. How fun......

Should be done with the project just in time to go back to work.

I'll get back to the build some day...........Brian

Center Section Top Skin Riveting

Dan H. came over today and we were able to set a few rivets. It is kind of an art to set rivets with a pneumatic gun & bucking bar. Very much like "Rosie" the riveter did in WWII.

Dan H. is on the wood stool driving the rivet with the pneumatic gun. I'm in the lawn chair holding the bucking bar trying to make nice looking shop heads on the rivets.

Remember from the flap kit. You don't want to smash them too much and you don't want to smash them too little. They have to be just right for maximum strength.

Some of the rivets I was able to reach with my main squeeze. When ever you are using a squeezer you are just about guaranteed to have nice uniformed shop heads on the rivets.

Here is a shot of the left edge of the center section from the bottom side. These are AN426AD-3-3.5 rivets set with the squeezer.

This is a shot of the top of the wing walk area. All flush rivets. It helps to write notes to yourself prior to riveting or for that matter even drilling holes. You can see in a glance what needs to be done.

All the writing is done with a sharpie. A so called permanent marker. They are not so permanent. Sharpie ink wipes off with denatured alcohol and a rag.

After Dan and I used up all the AN470AD-3-3.5 rivets Dan had to leave. It was a long afternoon.

I started laying out the next phase of the assembly. The control tunnel and fuselage stringers.

Lots of parts to find, align, cut, drill, debur, & dimple. Sounds like fun!

Brian

Flap & Reinforcement

After inventory, I took the skins off the center section (CS). I mounted the Flap Handle and elevator control to the CS. Next, I took half the hinge from the Flap and started prep work on mounting the Flap to the bottom skin.

I had to find several parts and make a couple of filler pieces. The Flap Reinforcement (FR) was in the big box I keep pushing around the garage. To fit the Flap to the CS I took a lot of measurements and looked at a lot of prints. When I started to align the FR to the Rear Spar I found that the FR was going to need a lot of notches in it to mount flush on the Rear Spar. Someone on the Mustang Aero web site told me it would look like Swiss Cheese when completed. It did!

To have evenly spaced rivets I took a 36" & a 12" metal rulers and drilled #44 holes in them to use as drill guides. I drilled holes in the bottom skin where the Flap Hinge and filler pieces will be riveted to the skin. The drill guides worked great. (I used a #44 drill. Final drilling was a #40.)

I Cleco-ed the Flap Hinge & Reinforcement to the bottom skin. Mounted the bottom skin to the CS and used my drill guide to drill through the FR & Rear Spar. They came out pretty good.

All I have to do now is debur and dimple the CS, bottom skin, top skin, and flap pieces. Two of my favorite things to do! I need to find a better way to debur holes. During the Flap project deburing was very boring and it hurt my fingers. I will have to experiment and find a better way.

Brian

Wow! It came! (Or, I picked up!)

Well, here it is. The entire deluxe Mustang II kit. Lot's of boxes. Hey, they fit in the garage!

Dan H. and I drove the 6.5 hours to Troy, Michigan and visited the MII headquarters. About a 13 hour round tripper. Altogether we were on the road for about 16.5 hours.

Chris Tieman gave us a nice shop tour and helped us load up. We also got a lot of neat ideas.

Thanks Dan for all the help! I owe you!

After we got home and I got a good nights rest (who could rest!) I got started on the MII building process. I inventoried about 75% of all the boxes. Very time consuming!

Next, I build an assembly stand for the center section. The quick build center section (CS) comes with a single sheet instruction. I got confused almost immediately! If I have the opportunity I'm going to make some detailed notes as I go along and rewrite the instructions.

I'd like to take any guess work out of the project I can for the other builders that are out there.

Here is the CS in the stand with the skins removed. The instructions state to "locate" the landing gear holes in the aft spar. Hey, they are already drilled!

The craftsmanship is outstanding so far. I mean crafts-woman-ship! Teri, of MII, did a great job getting my kit together!

So far the only problem I have is in the instructions. I'm sure the information is there, I just have to get better at my interpretation.

As I assemble the kit I will continue to blog. You are most welcome to come along for the ride!

Brian W.

The Long Wait!

The boredom really set in during November!

The waiting for the kit to arrive is making the time pass slowly. I had to work Thanksgiving and the associated weekend, so we had Thanksgiving the Tuesday before T-day.

I invited over my aviation buddy, Barry, for dinner and to help clean up afterwords.

Christine made a fine dinner!

After Thanksgiving Christine's dishwasher kind of started going south. We ordered up a new one. She has been upset with the old floor in the kitchen for sometime, so we went to look. I ended up repainting the kitchen in mid December to match the flooring we ordered.

It is an old 1950s vintage home. It needs and has been getting a lot of TLC through the years. The kitchen and new floor look great and Chris is happy. (That may buy me some more time in the garage if and when the kit arrives!)

The boredom was so great, Chris and I took a tour of Jelly Belly in Pleasant Prairie, Wi. Each season or Holiday, Jelly Belly changes it's decor. It's kind of fun to see what they have up next & to taste the different candies.

We completed the kitchen, the tour, and we went to the movies to see Unstoppable before the kids arrived.

Our oldest daughter drove up from Oklahoma with her husband. They are meteorologists and yes, they have chased tornados! Cynthia (red coat) graduated with a masters from Oklahoma University.

Matt, next to her, is working on his doctorate in meteorology. I'll have a doctor in the family, but he will not be able to do my surgery. (Matt is taller then he looks. He is standing below grade.)

Robin, far right, goes to University of Alaska in Fairbanks. It was 10 degrees F when we picked her up at the airport. She thought it was kind of warm. Robin is working on a masters in space physics.

Bob and Myrtle blew in on the wind to visit during the Christmas Holidays. They are the white snow people in the center. They have since melted away.

And that is Christine and I on the far left. I just can't wait for the kit to come so I can get to the challenge! (I'm the good looking guy with the pink Mustang II hat!)

I wish everyone a great New Year!

Bye for now, Brian W.