Forward Fuselage, part 4 (5.5)

5.5 hours

Lots more progress on the forward fuselage box.

I added the hinge at the bottom of the firewall, although it did not match up with the bottom hole of the firewall stiffener like the plans indicated.  Not a huge deal, I just added another hole to locate the hinge in the right place.

 

 I also spent some time updrilling and deburring a bunch of smaller parts like the stiffeners and gussets.  Next I got to work on the spar tunnel area, which is by far the most complicated part!

While fitting the spar tunnel parts I used this bar clamp to keep the top of the fuselage at 40" wide.

Like the rear spar tunnel web, which I mostly pre-assembled earlier, the forward tunnel web gets flush riveted to the side panel verticals and the associated reinforcing plates. Once I got everything fit inside the fuselage, I took the whole assembly out to updrill and dimple/sountersink as required.

Next, I added a bunch more holes to the aft spar web.  I guess the plans didn't have me do this initially since it's different if you're doing a tri-gear or standard gear airplane.  Since I'm doing the standard gear version, all I had to do here was continue the pattern of holes across the whole assembly.  If I was installing tri-gear, the main gear brackets would get installed around this area.