Fuselage Construction

 

The first thing you do in building the fuselage is to make your longerons. The longerons are 3/4" square wood. The wood is not long enough that comes in the kit. Also from the middle of the cockpit forward the wood is solid. From the middle of the cockpit back the wood is slotted on two sides for the geodetic. These to different pieces are spliced at the cockpit. ( This is shown in the next photo ). There is a left and right side of the fuselage. The slots have to be turned in a certain direction for each side. You don't get a second chance. If you bought a kit you will be calling Fisher for more wood.

When your longerons are done they are locked into place by using wood blocks. This is all done on the plans.

This photo shows the second set of longerons being glued. Notice the blocks are still in place from the first side of the fuselage being completed. This was to ensure that they will have the same shape. Care must be taken when installing the lower longeron into these blocks. You can damage your longerons.

After your longerons are in the blocks you can start building up the fuselage. You have a number of items to install in the cockpit area as shown in the lower right of this photo. Where the geodetic starts is where the seat back is. From there you install uprights and gussets, than your geodetic is installed over that.

This shows both sides of the fuselage completed. On the right side of the table shows the components that need to be installed from the seat back forward. They are the back of the seat - internal floor - firewall - front top deck. These components give you the width of your fuselage. Installing these four components can be difficult! This is done with the fuselage on its side. The front part is held up by the items you are installing but you have to make a brace to hold the fuselage up that is on the top side. You can see part of the brace I made in the far right of this photo. Everything has to be squared up from the very front at the firewall all the way back to the tail. This took me a couple of day to do. While you are squaring everything you can use brads to hold everything in place. Once you have it right you take it all apart, put the glue on and put it all back together again making sure it is all square. You don't get a second chance.

FORMING THE TAIL OF THE FUSELAGE

This next section I neglected to take any pictures of. This was pretty easy to do. There is another set of blueprints you use to do this called the top view of the fuselage. This set of plans is put down on the table and the fuselage is put on the plans upside down seance the top of the fuselage is flat. You block the front and the cockpit area of the fuselage in place so you have no movement when you bend the sides in. You bend the sides in using blocks to hold the top longerons in place all the way back to the tail. Once both sides are blocked in place you install your cross members, gussets and geodetic on the top and bottom of the fuselage just like you did on the sides. There are other things you have to do but basically your done.

This is the basic fuselage completed

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