"I've built the fuselage so many times in my head now I just can't stand it anymore! so even though I still have a little more work to finish up the wings I decided to start the fuselage.
I've gone over a lot of material in preparation - 1) Eric's Fuselage Manual Section Two, 2) Russes CD - Fuselage section and technical guidance reference fuselage, 3) Paul Minelga's builders log (www.mykitlog.com/yeeeha), 4) Jump Run Enterprises ""Aircraft Construction Methods - 4130 Steel Tube Fuselage"" 5) Tin Mans ""4130 Chromemoly Airframe Construction"" 6) Beartracks. I must say I really feel prepared for this!
I decided to start with the top first. My reason for this is that I want to be able to reference the layout on the table for the bottom when I start jigging the fuselage. I'd rather not layout the bottom twice so it just makes sense to do the top first. Actually this is what both Russ and Eric did too even though in Eric's manual it shows starting with the bottom (Beartracks too). You can see Eric’s top sitting to the side in the picture of the bottom frame on the table in the manual :-)
After laying out the table I started the longerons. The first bend at station ""N"" requires a little heat to assist (thanks Paul! you're pointing that out helped me). The first bend went great so I moved on to the next. I made a bending form out of 2 pieces of the nose that I had left over from the dolly. I routed a 1/4 round in each piece them glued and nailed them together to make a 3/4"" grove to fit the tube in. This works well and I can make my bends in place. As I got to the end of my first longerons I noticed some damage on the tubing about 1' from the tail. Crap! I just made my first longeron and it turned out perfect and now I have to discard it. A stumbling start. Pressing on I made a new one then another one on the other side. After bending I removed the blocks to verify that the longerons follow the outline without assistance. I did a little tweeking then reinstallled the blocks and set the longerons back
