Final fitting of the aft fuselage - 8 hours

Very long and frustrating day. I started the day with a little research on how at the tail pieces fit together to make sure all is good. A little head scratching but the F-710 bulkhead sits above F-779 bottom tail skin, which sits on top of F-778 bottom aft skin and the F-773 side skins.

But now the real challenge is having everything line up when clecoing....but it doesn't.
I don't know where to begin. I've clecoed and unclecoed some many times. Its very difficult and extremely frustrating. I managed to get the assembly pretty good, but the F-710 bulkhead is really really tight and rippled which did not sit well with me. Also I cannot fully cleco the F-779 bottom tail skin as the lower J-stiffener is in the way. Here is as far as I got.

Began final fitting of the aft fuselage - 6 hours

I needed to disassemble the aft fuse in order to start to devinyl the skins. But before I could reassemble I needed to ensure my sawhorses are level. My garage floor is fairly poor when it comes to how level things are. I built a frame on the floor to place the sawhorses on, and leveled that frame.


I then got to work de vinyling the aft fuse skins. A fairly long process but I assembled as I went.



I then started to look how to fit the F-710 bulkhead into the fuse.

Started initial fitting of the Aft Fusalage - 5 hours

One of the items that I didn't fully complete was finish cutting the J-stiffeners. It's not entirely clear from the plans and manual if J-stiffeners cut trimmed on each ends. Also, I'm leery to cut the J-stiffeners to length as per the plans or should I be leaving them long for best bit. Once I started lining things up, I could see that I did in fact need to trim both ends of A,B, and C stiffeners per the detail on the plans and also that the length stated on the plans is bang on.

Update - For the notch that gets cut into the ends of the J-Stiffners (as detailed on the plans), Notch both ends of the two longest stiffeners. The shortest J-Stiffener that goes on the top only gets notched on one end. Really, in order to assembly the aft fuselage you only need to cut and notch the two sets of longest J-channels. So you can always leave the 3rd (short) set till much later.

After marking the ends per the plans, I rough cut them on the band saw and then using the 3M wheel they were easily shaped to final form.

Next I began a lose fit of the F-712,  F-711 and F-710 bulkheads to the F-779 tail bottom skin. I knew from reading the various blogs that the bottom skin needed some TLC to fit the bulkheads better. It was easy to see how off it is.


I could also see how I needed to angle the flanges on the bulkhead. Yup, lots of adjustment needed.

I decided to hand bend the F-779 bottom skin, I took my time and slowly worked at it.


I finished up the day with clecoing the Aft fuselage to check fit.

Completed the F-711 bulkhead assembly - 0.5 hrs

Now that the primer from last nights fix is dry, I finished setting all the remaining rivets. Short and sweet. Bulkheads are now done.

Primed the F-711 Bulkhead and started assembly - 3.5 hours

Very small day today. I just need to prime the components before I can assemble them. I always try to get 12hrs dry time on the parts when I can as the primer can be too soft.24 hours is best. 

My priming process is a little intense. First a scotchbrite scrub, then soapy wash, then acid bath, Degrease wipe, MEK wipe and prime.

All done with priming. Now to wait for it to dry.

I waited until the late evening to start assembling. I cleco's the assembly and clamped it in the vice, and started bucking.

As I started the row at the very top (where it isn't clamped well). I slipped with the rivet set and gave the piece a small smiley. Ugh....very annoying. I managed to perform some surgery and dressed out the smiley with some scotchbrite on the dremmel to remove any sharp edges.

I then wiped the area with acetone and masked off the set rivets and re-sprayed primer. Almost like it never happened.

Prep'd the F-711 bulkhead components - 3 hours

I was ready to prep and prime the F-711 bulkhead components. Unfortunately this took quite some time as the F-711 bulkhead as a lot of little tabs, nooks and crannies. Like every other piece I broke the edges with a small file, and then polised the edges on the 3M wheel. All of the nooks and crannies get polished with the maroon scotchbrite on the dremmel tool.

Fabricated F-711D and fitted to bulkhead - 2.5 hours

Well, after getting back from holidays in Mexico the desire to build is very low. I have to make myself get into the garage today. I fabricated the F-711D angle which is fairly straight forward. I took my time and made sure it was exact. Once fabricated, I carefully clamped it to the Bulkhead.
 
 I drilled and clecoe'd. Yup everything looks good.

I set the angle so that the bottom of the flange is even with the top of the bulkhead as per the plans.