Playing catch up on my blog posts here as been busy! Last Saturday, Feb. 17th, was a building session that focused on getting the 3 pieces of each side of the fuselage glued together and stabilizer.
In order to glue the pieces of the fuselage together you mix up a batch of glue as it is made from two equal parts. Once mixed you glue them together and place weights (with wax paper between the weights and the wood to ensure nothing gets accidentally stuck together that could tear away the wood) to hold the seems together. The reason for the ‘cartoon teeth’ like look is to provide some interlocking which adds strength as gluing to flat ends together would not hold up well!
In the picture below I’ve glued the doubler to the fuselage making sure the curve lines up with the side of the fuselage. This piece is on the inside of both sides of the fuselage to provide support for the wing. You need to make sure that it is flush with the top (as the bottom is right above where a tab for one of the formers fits in) and lined up properly front and back too as there are tab holes there as well that if it covers you’ll be loosing support from where you need it.
For the stabilizer (shown at the top of the post) used Sig Cement to glue. The only reason why I’m mentioning this is because the next time I went to Peter’s I discovered the sides didn’t hold, dun dun dun. But I knew my stab was still OK as I used a different set of glue all together.
For the stab I had to find all the pieces, do some light sanding to remove the laser burns, and then line them up on the plans to ensure everything lines up and lightly sand where necessary. I then glued and pin the perimeter pieces together followed by the center piece. I then has to measure and cut all the individual pieces for reinforcing the stabilizer. This involved cutting and sanding to make sure my angles were right to get a tight fit where the individual pieces of the ‘inside’ touch together along with where they touch with the perimeter of the stab.
That wrapped up another day!