Category: Fuselage

Now that I’m basically done with the wings, I can go back to working on the fuse. Section 26 – Mid Fuse Ribs and Bottom Skins will be creating the back half of the fuselage floor. As this will take up some significant space, I wanted to make sure I finished up the left over little stuff on the wings.

Before I even started, I read through the chapter to ensure I understood the sequencing. I quickly realized that I have to do a few steps, prime a few parts, rivet those parts together, then do the next few steps. This repeats throughout the chapter vs most other sections where I can prime and rivet everything at the end. Lots of little primer sessions in my future!

First few steps, build the Inner and Outer seat rib subassemblies. Nothing new with these parts. Only thing I should have done was to fabricate and include the flap motor mount parts when I primed the subassemblies.

Next, I start pulling the parts for the rear seat ribs and fabricating the seat belt brackets for them. Before I cleco these ribs to the bulkhead, I need to rivet the previous brackets to together. TIP: Make sure you flute the outer most ribs to match the bottom skin. (F-1015L/R and F-1018L/R). These are really the only ribs that need to be fluted, and as others have found it’s quite difficult to flute them once they are riveted together.

Again, nothing hard, just cleco, match drill, deburr, prime, and reassemble. About now, things are starting to get big so I ended up getting one of those “cheap” work platforms from the big box stores. Another option would be to stack some 2/4’s on the ground as a platform as the bottom skin needs to hang down past the forward bulkhead a bit.

Only other “gotcha” or oops I had was that I didn’t check the alignment of the F-1018R rib with the fuselage bulkhead assembly and allowed the rib to be trapped inside the flange of the bulkhead assembly. It should have been on the outside of the bulkhead and I had already started to rivet things together. Not a major problem, but I’m not a fan of double work. Drilled out enough rivets to allow me to move the parts into the correct position. From there, all is great and I’m able to build on :).

Lastly I start to cleco the skins onto the ribs and bulkheads. This was really cool to see and starts to make me worried about space issues in my garage. For now I’m rolling with the punches, but things may get interesting in the next few sections. With such a large part, I decide that I’m going to mark every hole I drill to make sure I don’t miss anything. Makes match drilling go a little slower, but I’m ok with that.

UPDATE: 4/7/2020 – One thing not fully covered in the plans is where to put the MFG heads vs the Shop heads in this section. Only when I went to install the rear seat floor pans did I realize there may be a recommended method. Where possible, put the round MFG head on the passenger visible side. It not only looks better, but also makes it easier to install the floor later on.

NOTE: While not called out in the plans, I would HIGHLY recommend that you dimple the F-1015B and F-1015A #40 holes now to allow the side skins to sit flush once they are dimpled. While it can be done later, it’s a pain in the rump. See Plans page 29-15 and 29-17 for rivet callouts.

Finishing up the Mid Fuselage Bulkheads, I continue by locating all the parts for the next bulkheads. I clean up and deburr all the parts on the ScotchBright wheel. Next I start the process of assembling and match drilling all of the holes called out in the plans.

With the improving weather, I was able to finish preparing the final parts for chapter 25 and get them primed without too much fuss. Once the primer has had time to cure, I’m able to begin the final assembly of the last two bulkheads.

Nothing too difficult on the Rear Spar Bulkhead. Just about all of the rivets are easy enough to set (only a few of the rivets on the gussets were slightly difficult to access). The only item that gave me pause was the nutplate holes in the F-1005A spar. Plans had me drill #40 and #19 those holes, but wanted to verify I shouldn’t countersink. Took a few mins of going through the plans to verify – leave them alone for now.

With that done, I move onto the Fuselage Bulkhead assembly. Very straightforward and easy to rivet. (I probably could have used the squeezer, but was already rocking it with the rivet gun at this point.)

With these bulkheads done, I putting them aside and backtracking to the last few items on the wings. Need to finish up the ailerons, flaps, tanks, and mount the pitot mast. Worried if I don’t do these items now, then they will be on the back burner for a long time as space will become an issue. LOTS to do, just need to buckle down while the weather is nice!

Continuing on with Section 25, I begin to work on the aft center section bulkhead. This is mostly a repeat of the forward center section.

I begin by collecting all the parts for this assembly, then final drilling as appropriate with my reamer. Not much to comment on and very few surprises as I began the process. Once completed, I disassemble and deburr. The weather has been nice the last few days and I was able to get all the parts primed without too much trouble.

After waiting 24 hours for the primer to cure, I begin final assembly of the forward center section. Install the blots per plans. I elected to put the rivets for the seat stiffeners in with the mfg head on the spar as I really didn’t want to use my offset rivet set. For the other areas where I could get a straight rivet set in, I put the mfg head on the primed parts. Honestly do whatever makes the most sense for you.

With the fwd section done, I begin to work on the aft section. Basically another repeat of the fwd section, just make sure you don’t rivet in those areas called out in the plans. Every now and then I would put a smiley into a few of the universal head rivets. No big deal, but I would drill the rivet out and replace. When you replace the rivet twice, that is a good clue to take a break and come back in a bit.

With both the fwd and aft center sections completed, I stored them inside temporarily to give me a little more space. I’ll probably finish off this chapter then go back and look at finishing up my tanks, flaps and ailerons just so I can get those parts off my shelves and attached to the wing stand.

With the Fuse delivered I wanted a break from working on the wings. Flipping to chapter 25, I start to work on the fuselage!

Starting off I have to fabricate some stiffener brackets out of angle aluminum. Looking at the stock sent in the kit it I attempt to figure out what length of angle to cut. Since I ordered an extra 6 foot section “just in case” I go ahead and use one of the 3 foot sections for these parts as it looks like they include extra length anyway.

Once that’s done, I make the appropriate marks, match drill the stiffeners, then jump into making the seat brackets. Lots of final drilling of parts as this is a pretty beefy structure. I may have overdone it a bit by taking parts off after drilling them to deburr, only to have to re-install them again to drill something else. Nothing wasted by my time, so it’s fine.

Looks like the more recent kits from Vans already have the appropriate cutouts on the spar (25-3: Steps 1-3), so that was nice. Then it was on to prepping the landing gear supports for attaching to the spar. I had to deburr and fiddle with the drill busing called out in step 4 to allow my drill bit to sit nicely in it, but that wasn’t too bad. Used plenty of BoeLube to keep the drill bit cool as I drilled the larger holes.

Once done (off camera) I made sure everything was labeled and then disassembled and deburred so I could prime.