Brief Description: Center to aft fuselage attach prep
Today was a session spent mostly getting ready to join the center and aft fuselage sections. Lots of prep work with a little actual airplane building. I started by constructing a sturdy sawhorse for the F-704 bulkhead to rest on. This can be seen in the foreground of the third photo. After getting that built, I drilled out the F-704 bulkhead and F-715 seat rib so I could cleco the forward and aft bulkheads together. Next I prepped the aft bulkheads to accept the longerons. Here's what I don't understand--the first photo shows me using a Foredom tool to widen the notches by about 1/32 of an inch...why couldn't they just be cut to the necessary width when the bulkheads are formed? Go figure...
The last part of the process was notching the longerons at the very back of the fuselage. The longerons pass over two vertical bars that attach the vertical stabilizer. Because of this, the longerons get notched and the location is very specific...so measure three times, mark twice, and cut once really applies here. When the cuts were made and filed, I put the two longerons in place and quit for the night. Tomorrow Steve is coming by to help set the center fuselage...should be fun!
