A big week

[Thermos]

Last week was a big one for us. My employer (Uncle Sugar's Air Force) shut down on Tuesday due to a snow storm, so I had some time to send in the finish kit order. Gotta avoid the April cost increases at Van's, don't you know.

Over the weekend, it was barely warm enough to get outside and construct a fuse cradle -



And on Sunday, after 3 years of building we flipped the canoe -





Lots of cleanup work left to do in the shop...we gave away one of our workbenches to make some extra room for engine and canopy work.

[smittysrv]

Excellent idea! I can't tell you how many times I have had to move this thing around. It's a spooky endeavor.

[Spike]

Nice work dude! It looks so purty out in the sunshine. Keep on plugging away.

John

[Bob Barrett]

Another option is to get the main gear on the fuselage as quickly as possible and make a tail stand. That is what I did on my RV-6A and it was simpler and not that much higher than a fuselage jig.

[bruceh]

Keep it low and your back will thank you while you bend over and work on the interior. In fact, I built the same rolling stand and ended up cutting it down much lower. Now that my engine and gear is on, it is up too high to work on the fuselage interior. Glad I got most of the wiring done while it was down lower!

[DaAV8R]

I see you have not riveted the firewall to the side and bottom skins. Did you dimple those holes before assembly? I am a little unclear as to when we dimple those holes as we will need to fit the hinge or whatever we use on the inside of the firewall at some later date. Just curious what your game plan is.

Robert

[Thermos]

Robert,

I thought about not dimpling the side/bottom skins and firewall until after drilling the cowling hinge, but most everyone I talked went ahead and dimpled and had no problems match-drilling the hinge plates later on.

Hope this helps,

Dave

[captain_john]

Nice flippin' work there Thermos!!!

Keep it up!

CJ

[aparchment]

Nice job Dave.