Started on F-705 bulkhead

Tonight we started work on the F-704 bulkhead.  This is the other key part of the fuselage where the rear wing spars attach the the fuselage.  More importantly it is where our seat backs will rest and where the seat belts get connected.  We started off by locating all of the main parts (they were split between Darren's and my house).  After that we began manufacturing a bunch of the parts that are needed for this bulkhead.  We ended the night by having all the parts retrieved and most of the parts manufactured.  Assembly will start on the weekend. 

Some of the F-704 pieces layed out.

More of the F-704 pieces layed out. 

The heart of the fuselage

Today we wrapped up most of the tasks associated with the bulkhead where the wings attach to the fuselage.  The bulkhead is built in two halves.  Van's Aircraft calls this "the heart of the fuselage".  We finished up the deburring tasks and started riveting the parts together.  Again, the pneumatic squeezer saved us a lot of time and energy. 

After that we worked on the parts that attach the control column to the bulkhead.

The other half of the fuselage has a number of places to connect panels, etc.  These all have three snap bushings drilled.  Here's a picture of us fitting the parts to the spar.

 

And here's another couple of them with the parts attached.

Finished firewall and started on main bulkhead

Tonight we finished up the last few rivets on the firewall and riveted on the doubler plate.  After that we started work on the bulkhead where the wings bolt to the fuselage.  Needless to say this is the heart of the fuselage.  We started off by drilling some holes for bushings (essentially little pieces of plastic that protect wires or cables from rubbing on the metal and chaffing).  After that we assembled the forward and aft portions of the bulkhead using the close tollerence bolts (and are they ever close tollerence) and clecos.  We match drill something called "shear bars" to the aft portion of the bulkhead and then finished up match drilling all of the parts.  Things went smoothly so we made a lot of good progress.

Scott working on the drill press.

Firewall assembly

Today we worked on the firewall.  The first step was to disassemble the entire thing so that we could machine countersink all of the stiffners and prep all of the parts.  I'll assume from now on that I don't have to talk about deburring (which took a lot of time).  After the prep work we prepped and primed all of the parts (except the firewall itself which is stainless steel).  We started assembling the firewall and managed to get most of it completed.  Only the fuel pump doubler plate and a few rivets on the attach bracket remain.

Darren machine countersinking the stiffners

Scott dimpling the firewall

Darren making sure that the bolts can fit in the platenut

Scott back-riveting the stiffners to the firewall

The (mostly) assembled firewall

Firewall continued

Tonight we spent a few hours wrapping up some of the pre-assembly tasks on the firewall.  First we match drilled some of the spacers and the two big attach brackets.  Next we finished match drilling the firewall recess.  Finally we drilled and match drilled the doubler plate for the fuel pump.  The firewall is now ready for disassebly followed by prepping (deburring, countersinking and sanding) and priming of the non-stainless steel parts.

Scott drilling the fuel pump doubler plate

 A picture of where we were at the end of the day

Start of fuselage (firewall)

Today was a mix of activities.  While I searched out the parts for the firewall and manufactured a few parts.  Darren finished machine countersinking the trailing edges for the ailerons and flaps.  Once that was done we started on the first piece of the fuselage kit -- the firewall.  It was necessary to manufacture a few attach angles, stiffners and reinforcement plates but now that we've done this before it was old hat.  Afterwards we started clecoing the parts to the firewall and match-drilled the main components.  

The parts for the firewall layed out

Scott clecoing the parts to the firewall