Fuselage (Forward Section)

	12 Feb 05	Big day for visual progress. Started out finishing off the aft notches for the longerons, then riveted about 30 one-leg plate-nuts to the center section (I'm installing removable floors). The workshop needed serious re-arranging to get everything to fit so I had to get that done. Also made the Home Depot run to pick up three saw horse and an 8' 2x4. Got all that done, then Paul Eastham came over and in about 45 minutes we had the longerons fitted and the center section mated to the aft fuselage. Basic work flow was to install longerons, flip the aft fuselage over, then mate the center section. No need to duct tape to keep the aft fuse skin and 706 bulkhead together. The two parts mated without much problems.
	13 Feb 05	Hey, while I'm at it, might as well start the forward skins. I was feeling bold so I did the corner bend prior to fitting the skins. No sense in pulling the skins again just to make the bend. Per Dan's site, I cleco'd the aft edge to the aft fuselage, then worked the rest of the clecos by pushing the center section as necessary to get everything lined up.
		As usual, every one takes a bunch of pictures when they get this far. This is really looking aft and up since the fuse is turned turtle. I left off the baggage floors to help facilitate the mating of the two sections.
		Here's the view with both side skins on. Yup, lots of good progress.
		The aft bends didn't turn out too bad. Really not a big deal, just take your time and don't get in too much of a rush.
		Just another view. Next step is to clamp the longerons to the skins and start drilling all those holes in the longerons.
	16 Feb 05	I wouldn't have guessed, but it pretty much took about 3 hours over about four evenings to drill the longerons from the tail, all the way forward to the 704 bulkhead. Lots of holes and lots of AL shavings.
	18 Feb 05	Here's the arm rests drilled to the side wall. Not a great picture but you get the idea. The wood cross beam at the 704 bulkhead came in handy. It's clamped to the aft 704 upright and allows you to put blocks under it to get the longeron and skin off the saw horse.
	19 Feb 05	The longerons were just a bit too long so about 3/16" came off the front.
		Fabricated and drilled the straps for the longeron / 704 tie. I looked allover trying to find the AS3 .063 x 5/8" bar stock. Finally found it in one of the hardware bags.
		The firewall was a little tricky. I set it in place with the 5/8" distance from the front of the skins to the rear face of the f/w and cleco'd on the bottom skin. Then scratched my head in trying to figure out how to confirm the 5/8" distance. Hummmm. Finally, thought to remove the bottom skin, verify the 5/8 distance, then determine how far from the f/w aft face to the c/l of the rivet row along the vertical forward edge of the side skins. Just about 5/16" does it. Now draw a line 5/16" from the aft face of the f/w along the side flange. Cool. That works. Now re-install and check the c/l is centered through the rivet punch holes.
		Just about ready to drill the firewall. It's clamped back in place and everything seems to fit.
	22 Feb 05	Finally drilled the firewall. This is almost starting to look like an airplane. The instructions said only drill two places at each side of the firewall along the lower flange. I can't find any reference in the future that says to wait, so I went ahead and drilled all the #40 holes in the lower firewall flanges.
	23 Feb 05	The fun starts. The right aux. longeron goes in and is the first of several angles that have to be fitted, twisted and drilled.
	25 Feb 05	In between fitting angles to the forward fuselage, I'm doing the rest of the drilling. A little bit at a time seems to work well.
		Forward stiffeners are fitted but the clips that attach the stiffener to the firewall is not done yet.
	27 Feb 05	Easiest way to drill the clips is the fit in place, then peel the skin back a little and drill from the outside. Worked out fairly well.
		Again, just catching up on all the holes needed in this section. I've drilled the 1" hole for the fuel line and marked for the 7/16" vent bulkhead fitting.
		The lower longeron is going in. This is a pretty honkin' bit of AL here. Anyway, it's being clamped for drilling to the firewall bracket.
	1 Mar 05	I figured I can set the F7107 plate prior to getting the lower longeron drilled (except for a couple set holes). I know on Dan's site, he was wondering what this thing is doing in the -7 since it appeared to be an artifact from the -7A kit. From what I can tell, This big piece of .063 ties together the lower and aux longerons with the 704 forward bulkhead. Without this, all you have is the skin.
	3 Mar 05	OK, not a great photo, but I did get the lower longerons drilled. I'm starting to take a look at all the clecos sticking out of this thing then realize that for each cleco, there's another two rivets that are going to need to be set...
	4 Mar 05	The lower aux longeron gussetts get drilled. Took about an hour each to get these to fit but they're in.
	5 Mar 05	Managed to fabricate the fuel tank backing bracket. I found that these are a bit less in height that what Van's calls for. Pretty much just make 'em fit...After finishing  off these brackets, I have the lower floor stringers to drill and the baggage area sides. Then this whole things comes apart.
	6  Mar 05	Went ahead and fitted these corner gussets. These are some pretty stout chunks of metal and the instructions say to fit later, but I can't see why I can't do it now. This whole area is open so why not? Finally broke 700 hours! According to Van's estimates I half way done. Yea...right....
	7 Mar 05	Time to start on the rudder pedals. I'm waiting to assemble the brake pedals for a little while I figure out my interior color. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with a tan but I do want to powdercoat the brake pedals. Might even have the rudder pedals re-coated as well.
	10 Mar 05	Mounted the rudder pedals after replacing the aux longerons. I ended up taking them both out of the fuselage to drill on the bench. I max forward you can go is 3" from the firewall and I drilled positions at 3, 4 and 5" aft of the firewall.
	12 Mar 05	The center rudder pedal mount gets drilled. This was pretty simple. I followed this by trimming the mount per plans and adding two lightening holes.
	13 Mar 05	I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's the train I think. This evening I drilled the floor stiffeners to the skin. I still have to drill the center to to the firewall angles and the cover bracket on main spar carry through. The only things left, I think, are: - Drill baggage floor ribs to 706 bulkhead - Fit and drill baggage area stiffeners - Fabricate and locate angle bracket that supports the front 704 bulkhead cover at the 7101 plates.  I figure but the end of the week, this who thing starts coming back apart for a marathon de-burr, dimple and prime session.
	14 Mar 05	The stiffeners are pretty much drilled but I wanted to be sure to locate the angle that supports the forward 704 bulkhead cover. The line is drawn on the 7101 and I'll drill that prior to finishing off the 7101. I want to rivet that before the 7101 is riveted.
		Not much to this picture. Drilled stiffeners to the firewall and 704 brackets.
	15 Mar 05	Baggage walls only took about an hour to fit. I'll have to finish the side panels when the floors are in.
	19 Mar 05	This is all starting to come apart. Instead of taking everything apart, then de-burring, I spreading this excitement and de-burring as each part comes off the fuselage.
	26 Mar 05	OK, not much progress in photos. I've been dis-assembling things one part at a time. There's a ton of parts in this forward fuselage and each has to the usual de-burr and dimple/ or countersink. I just keep pluggin' away a little each night.
	27 Mar 05	Yup, still taking the soldering iron to the plastic. I use a 24" steel ruler with the soldering gun and the plastic removal goes quick. It takes a little extra time, but from the little scuffs on the wings and aft fuselage, I'll keep it on till it's done. I know....it's going to be scuffed up for the final paint job. Might as well keep the metal as nice as possible.
	29 Mar 05	This is what this whole thing looks like. I'll have to hit some of the deburring that I didn't get to earlier. I just made sure I got to all the deburring for the parts that were going to need priming.
	1 Apr 05	Took about 2 hours to scrub all these parts. Man! There's lot's of stuff for Alumapreppin'! The nice thing is at most are only two feet long so they're not too awkward. The side and lower skins I did on the driveway and don't take too long. Nice big flat pieces usually go pretty quick.
	2 Apr 05	Progress! Got all this stuff primed in about an hour. This is always a good feeling 'cause the next part means things are going to go back together for the final time. This priming came out about the best yet. Ended up with a 2:1:1/2 ratio of DP48LF, Catalyst, and Reducer going together in a Harbor Freight HVLP gravity feed gun. For a cheap sprayer, it works OK.
	4 Apr 05	This is nice. Things starting to go back together. Disassembling the fuselage is a bummer, realizing that everything is going to have to be deburred and dimpled. Lots of work. Putting things back together is a good sign.
	5 Apr 05	There was a bunch of items I needed to do prior to getting the forward fuselage put back together. One of these was the installation of the AN-4 bolts in the carry-through bulkhead. You just can't reach the lower bolts so do this before final assembly.
	7 Apr 05	After the bolts got installed (among other things), the center section once again gets fitted to the aft fuselage. Not a big deal and everything seemed to fit into place with minimal effort.
	8 Apr 05	I thought forward progress was now assured. Not! Got the left skin back on after some effort. The center section  and aft fuselage need to be aligned for this to fit correctly. After fussing with the skin for a while. I thought I'd read the instructions again. The rivets marked with the arrows need to be riveted prior to the skin going on because there's no way to get to there later. Bummer. Skin comes off.
		Yup. Rivet the two plates to the the skins, then put the skin back on. Not a lot of forward progress for the time spent.
	10 Apr 05	Paul Eastham came over and we banged out a couple hours of riveting. We accomplished most of the outboard seat rib-to-skin rivets, as well as the rivets in the left triangle baggage rib. So far, so good. This is going to take a little work.
	14 Apr 05	During the week I was able to crank up the compressor and do some squeezing where possible. Most of the squeezable rivets are along the longeron in the cockpit area and a number towards the tail.
	15 Apr 05	Finished off these blind rivets. I had installed the nutplates in the outboard seat ribs so there's a number of these are about impossible to buck. It's non-structural and is covered by the wing root fairing.
		Also installed the eight AN3-5A bolts. I found that you need two washers to make it legal since the bolts are a little on the long side. I might have been able to go with AN4s.
	19 Apr 05	Slowly making progress on the forward fuselage. At this point, most of the forward aux longeron and stiffeners are riveted. Next step is the arm rests and the baggage compartment side wall ribs.
	22 Apr 05	Managed to do a fair number of hours today. We had some rain and low clouds so flying was out. Good time to work on the RV for a little. This is the forward tank mount. Per the plans, I opted to use the -4 rivets cause the -3s just weren't going to work.
		I placed a straight edge from the lower firewall angle back along the center right floor stiffener. Found there was a pretty good gap and that was going to make things ulgy for the skin. A .063 3/4 x 3/4 angle provided good material for a shim. When riveted, this came out fairly well.
		After about 5.5 hours today, and another 2.5 hours of help from Paul Eastham, we completed the forward lower skin. The floor stiffeners went really quick. The forward edge and the sides were another matter, especially the areas around the forward engine mount. At this time, I'm down to the areas around the center to aft fuselage joint. Getting really close to turning this over.
	26 Apr 05	While waiting on the fuselage riveting, decided to work some of the parts needed just as soon as I flip the fuselage. Might as well get started....
	28 Apr 05	I hadn't put together the brake pedals, so now was a good time to start these. Still need to finish them off. The current plan is to have these powder coated since they'll tend to take a pretty good beating.
	30 Apr 05	Now this is motivational. Paul came over again and after about two hours, we had this about done. At lease done enough to flip it over. There's still a couple hours of minor riveting left but those are easily reached.
		Another view....
		And a view from the front. I haven't leveled this yet, but that's on the list.