With the baggage compartment completed, it is time to move on to another book – forward fuselage. The joining of the forward and the rear fuselage is one of the plane building milestones, so allons-y!
Well, all I had planned to do after a long session deburring was to get all the parts out for this phase so I knew where they were. With the exception of the cabin frame, side skins and no doubt a cast of l-angles, here are the major pieces.
Ok, I couldn’t resist breaking “cleco” on the section so I cleco’d the pedal bearing channel onto the cabin floor.
And followed that with the floor stiffener underneath.
And with that I was done for the day.
Before continuing with the forward fuselage I may go “back” and fill in some loose ends that I haven’t done “yet”. In particular, I need to trim the longerons on all sides and then I can attach the rudder hinges (something from book 1 that I haven’t done). The DVD drills and rivets the side channel doubler into the front side channels, I haven’t seen that in any of the photo manuals yet, and no reason not to do it now that I can see.
I may also follow the DVD and install the flaperon controls mixer into the rear fuselage now, rather than wait until the forward fuselage is in the way. More often than not, the DVD shows the right order to do things.