Fuselage

March 18, 2005 (First fuselage entry!)

Fuselage kit arrives. Kit was ordered on December 29, 2004, so it took about 11 weeks for arrival. Both cartons were received in good condition.

March 20-23, 2005

Opened the two boxes of goodies.  Everything was well packed as usual. I spent about 11 hours on the inventory. Only one small part was missing, but there was some damage to the right aft fuselage skin.

Kind of hard to see in the pictures, but the damage was along the bottom edge of the skin. Damage was severe enough that it could not be worked back into place. I have contacted Van's regarding the damage and I'm waiting to hear back.

After finishing up the right wing and a little R&R in Maui, it's time to really get down to business on the fuselage.

Update on the damaged fuselage skin: After a return phone call from Van's, they have replaced the damaged aft skin with no problems. Thanks Van's.

May 15, 22, 2005

Well, I started working on straightening and fluting the bulkheads but got bored real quick with that so I decided that I would put that off until I actually needed them.  Instead, I gathered up the firewall components and began work on them. Much more interesting.

May 27, 2005

Fabricated the F-601 angles, spacers and fuel pump doubler plate and stiffeners. Began the process of cleco'ing to the stainless steel firewall.

May 28, 2005

Completed cleco'ing all remaining firewall components to firewall and began match drilling all components. The oily film is from the air drill exhaust.

May 29-30, 2005

Disassembled firewall components and did the necessary deburring, dimpling and machine countersinking. I'll set aside these parts for now and move on to the center section bulkhead.