Fuselage Construction Photos
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It's like the world's best Christmas present!
Bending seat back adjustment flange. Used the corner of my flap table and my back riveting plate to make a bending brake.
Fuselage is in a 90% right bank in order to make it easier to perform interior work.
Seat back adjustment angle clamped in place. I used the two 1/4" x 1/16" strips to make a temporary spacer.
Brake pedals. Primered with Marhyde self-etching primer and finished with Plasti-Cote gray enamel. Back riveting was used and factory heads were scuffed, primered and painted with another coat of enamel.
Moved my workshop into the garage. The garage is not as pleasant to work in as the basement-- but it has running water: water runs under the garage door, over the floor and into a drain in the back!
Drilling gear leg and landing gear mount.
Cutting gear leg hole. I cut this from the bottom of the fuselage.
Brake assembly, showing the alignment of center bushing and support bracket.
What a slick way to cut lightening holes-- with an instrument panel punch. Nevertheless, I managed to totally screw up one of the seat back adjustment brackets-- and I need to order a new one (I'm too lazy to build one from scratch).
Forward flap angle mounted in place. Notice instrument holes in baggage compartment-- this is not an overflow instrument panel, but rather I cut inspection holes to allow access to seat belt anchor bolts and to allow for airframe inspection later on. They will be covered with instrument panel blanks.
Flap motor after final installation. Flap weldment is secured in place as well.
Steel plate-nuts for tie-down rings. Much stronger than aluminum, and less likely to have thread damage. This job took a whole day!
Stainless steel tie-down rings installed.
Here's a tip: Where the center flap bearing block attaches, rivet the plate nuts to the baggage floor angle only, and not to the baggage skin. This allows you remove the baggage compartment floor without removing the flap actuator assembly. Notice the primer dabbed on the nut plate rivets to the right. These are blind rivets-- I just didn't want to remove the flap actuator to allow me to squeeze or drive solid rivets.
Center fuselage modifications for slider.
Seats riveted, in place.
Hinge pin keeper. Drilled and tapped angle for a #6 screw, and used a section of hinge to secure the end of the hinge pin which is bent 90 degrees.
Fuel vent. Tips were turned on my drill press with a
file to machine the threads off. Bare aluminum was then
alodined.
The Andair fuel selector installed. It's a very tight fit because of the the AN fittings, but it works out. I hate the AN bolts, maybe I'll replace them with SS screws.
One of the fuel vent lines installed.
Fuel and brake line rough-ins. I will finalize after wings are attached.
Fuel lines to tanks are routed quite a bit differently than Van's recommends. I drilled a new hole for a snap bushing in one of the angles, and I'll fabricate a clamp to secure the line to the weldment. Getting the 3/8" fuel lines through the snap bushings and through the weldment is pretty near impossible, especially with the Andair fuel valve.
Another view showing the fuel line and brake line routing.
I fabricated a bracket for the Adel clamp to hold the fuel line. Pop riveted it to the floor stiffener.
Rotating fuselage set-up.
Tail attachment is a 'shoe' that slides over the aft fuselage and
is held in place with a wooden block. Rope was used
initially to hold fuselage in position.
Final set up. Tightening pivot bolts provides enough friction to hold the fuselage in any position.
Right step attach details. I considered many other ways of mounting it, but finally decided that the way recommended in the plans is the strongest. I did round the corners of the flange, however, which I think looks better.
Dimpling tool for #30 holes in firewall. I pilot drilled
the end of a bucking bar, followed by counterboring a #30 hole
about 1/8" deep, followed by countersinking, then tapping
threads. The #6 screw is the 'male' die and the tapped bar
is the 'female' die. The #30 counterbore is to allow the
countersink to work.
The forward deck installed temporarily. I'm prepping all forward deck and panel components before attaching wings and empennage. I'll permanently install later.
How I bent the F-996A forward wing attach brackets.
First I fabricated a hardwood bending block. The inside
edge matches the radius of the angle, and the outside edge is
arbitrarily beveled to the bending point (marked). A few
wacks with a large deadblow hammer was required to bend the 2.7
degree angle. The angle wasn't uniform across the flange,
but it was close enough. The extra piece of aluminum bar in
the vise below the angle is necssary to keep everything lined up
when bending. I bent the second F-996A before cutting down
the rectangular flange, so I didn't need this extra piece, and
the bending worked much better.
Alodined and zinc chromated step mounting area. Area
outside of primer and inside of masking tape was left unprimered
so that sealant can stick properly. I didn't use the
Sherwin-Williams self etching primer because I didn't want to set
up my spray gun for a small job.
Here's one of the steps with the primer.
Steps are riveted on and complete. There is a bead of sealant extending 1/4" under the flange to prevent water ingress. I used polyurethane sealant, which is paintable. I set the rivets wet after dabbing primer on them-- hopefully this will minimize dissimilar metal corrosion.
For the vent inlets (shown above), I trimmed down some mesh and attached with five minute epoxy.
I drilled a small hole in the rear-facing part of the vent
openings to provide some airflow in the event the two vent tubes
ice up. Probably not enough for full power, but better than a
total engine failure.
Drilled four drain holes in the fuselage. Two just forward of the main spar carry through where any fuel leaking from the fuel selector can drain out, and two in the center section below the seats for water to drain out. Below the seats is the 'low point' of the fuselage. These drain holes are in the center sections, because if the airplane is not level laterally, there are many ways for water to drain out, such as the flap push rod holes. I covered the drain holes with stainless steel mesh liberated from faucet filters, and glued in place with a couple of dabs of polyurethane. Above are shown the drain hole fairings that I fabricated from 0.025" Alclad.
Here are two of them bonded to the fuselage bottom. They will prevent oil and water from ingressing the drain holes, and will create a slight vacuum to pull any liquids out of the drains. Also, they should generate questions at fly-ins.
Static line with aluminum clips.
Aileron trim system showing lockwire detail (about my fifth attempt). Also shown is rubber grommet in place for control stick wiring. Need at least PTT... maybe autopilot control as well. Definitely not flaps nor radio flip-flop (don't want my right arm to atrophy from lack of use). Seriously, flap control would require the installation of a relay deck which is a reliability issue.
Detail showing one of the two barrier terminal blocks installed for wing wiring.
Control stick assembly. Rod end bearings have been
pre-installed to simplify pushrod installation later.
Map box assembly and subpanel cut before stiffeners riveted on. I pop-riveted the box just because I could.
I also decided to mount it with screws and plate nuts so that I can work on the panel easier and paint it later.
My friend George McNutt's RV-6A which I had the privledge of flying for about an hour. George is a retired 747 pilot who has been quite helpful with advice. Taken at Langley, B.C.
For sound insulation, I made a template of the firewall. I rubbed the rivet lines with a pencil to emboss the rivet heads, which gave me the guides I needed for the cutting lines.
Here are all the 3/4" sound-proofing foam pieces rough-cut to shape. Final trimming for cables, brackets, hoses etc. will happen later.
This is some of the scrap you get from 2 running feet of material. Some of this will be used to cover firewall recess and various odd-shaped areas. Material was sourced from Wicks. I also have some 1/4" foam that I will use for under the forward fuselage top skin.