December 7, 2005 - Fuselage

I went to bolt the F-704 bulkheads together and my wooden spacers wouldn't fit.  They fit great before.  What's going on?  The nuts for the rib bolts -- that weren't there before -- were getting in the way.  So I spent some time sawing on my wooden spacers so they would fit.
Problem solved. 
Dan Checkoway's page alerted me that the bulkhead notches might not be wide enough for the longerons.  I checked and sure enough, they weren't.  I needed to widen them, but how?
I decided to try using this bit in my Dremel tool.  I had never used it before but it was perfect for the job.  It did leave a rough edge but it was easily smoothed with a circular file and emery cloth.  I widened all the bulkhead notches. 
The instructions call for three saw horses.  I only had the two orange ones, so I had to buy a third.  And even though it was the same brand-type as the others, it was impossible to adjust it to the same height.  So I had to use the Dremel tool & cutting disk to cut a half-inch off each leg extension.

Then I wondered if the saw horses would be wide enough.  And of course, they weren't.  So I had to cut some 2 by 4s to the right length and tape them to the saw horses. 

Finally, things were ready to cleco the thing together.  Lynnette helped me; it is not a one person job.  First we turned the aft fuse upside down.  Then we inserted the left longeron.  It slid in OK but I discovered my longeron notches were not wide enough.  So I spent another ten minutes widening the notches on both longerons.  We got the left longeron in OK and then did the right. 

 
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