Brief Description: Longerons: Downward Bends and Twist
The downward bends on the longerons were a little easier to do this morning than the shallow bends that I did yesterday. For one thing, these bends were relatively close to the forward ends of the longerons and so there was just one unweildy end to deal with. Also, these were single bends and didn't require sliding the longeron through the vice one inch at a time. I could also prevent these bends from twisting out of plane by applying an opposite twisting pressure to the ends of the longerons while tapping away with the rubber mallet. I used the side skins as template for these bends. They both came out very nice and matched the side skins perfectly. The final bends to make on the longerons were actually twists. I used a very large crescent wrench on the forward end of each longeron and twisted away. The instructions indicated a couple of different methods of determining the proper twist. I found laying a straight edge along the longeron and then measuring the drop at the end to be the easiest. Whew! I'm glad these bends are finally done. We'll see how well I did when it comes time to join the fuselage sections together. They came out fine against the templates but the real test will be using them to join all of the fuselage sections together. For now though they go back up to the rafters...
