I am pretty much trying to get the mid section of the fuselage going.  Kevin Faris drove down again today to put in another day of his time helping me.  I cannot understate the value of having someone who has "been there, done that" help when you get to the fuselage.  Kevin has been really good at pointing things out I should be thinking about.  He assembles ribs and bulkhead assemblies as fast as he can find my parts.  Me>>>  I have to look at the prints two or three times to figure out what is going on.  I am fortunate to have Kevin helping me.  He is every bit as meticulous as I am (even when it isn't his plane) and everything he is helping me fabricate is outstanding.

Anyway, the picture below is one of those meticulous, mind numbing exercises we started with on today's construction.  I had fabricated the  F-705G angles earlier in the week and I needed to match drill them to the F-705D bulkhead side channels.  I wanted to ensure that I drilled those holes straight since that angle is pretty thick (I hate oblong holes).  So Kevin came up with the drilling arrangement below.  It worked great and the holes turned out great, exept for some location issues we self-induced on the right angle.

I couldn't hold the drill that straight even if I wanted to.....

Once we got the F-705G angles match drilled to the bulkhead side channels, we sharpie marked the slot needed to allow the canopy latch to pass through.  Kevin had brought down a cross-sliding vise, some end mills, and some adjustable reamers.  Anyway, we chucked up the end mill and milled the hole out for the canopy latch. 

I am sold on the end mill.  It sure is nice to have the right tool for the job.  (That excludes my hunk of junk drill press).  Anyway, the slot looks pretty good.  So far, Kevin and I were feeling pretty good about our progress, but that changed about an hour later.....  Read on....

A cameo shot of Kevin installing the control column so we could check it for fit.  We were also trying to scope out wire runs to get all the wiring from the wing to the forward fuselage.  As I understand it, the snap bushing locations Van's gives you could be bigger in order to accommodate all the wires and tubing that has to go forward.

A status picture.  I can actually visualize this could actually be an airplane someday....

Okay, here is where we (I) ended up taking two steps backward for everything we did earlier today.  I had noticed that the F-705G-R angle looked crooked after we drilled it.  Sure enough it was crooked.  It apparently slipped under the clamp and now was not sitting flat against the bottom side of the top channel (F-705F).  Okay, that was a builder induced problem.  Well, I went over to look at the other angle F-705G-L and I noticed that the top flange of the angle was not laying flat on the F-705F top channel, but everything looked like it was drilled straight.  What the heck????  I was in such disbelief, I forgot to shoot a picture of it.

Okay>>>  This is where I introduced Kevin to my HIGH TECH NUCLEAR MAINTENANCE TROUBLESHOOTING SKILLS.  I asked Kevin if this would pass the "Sesame Street Test".  I got the deer in the head lights >>>  HUH?!?!?  So I explained the Sesame Street theory and it does something like this:  If it looks like it doesn't look right, it probably isn't.  We had another example were some holes didn't line up properly.  It didn't pass the Sesame Street test, but we mis-drilled the holes anyway....  These happened to be a  couple of holes for the cover support ribs on the center section.  Anyway, I will detail my fix to that in a later log entry.
I removed the mis-fitting F-705G-L angle and put it up against a machinist square.  What the HECK????  It wasn't extruded to a 90 degree angle.  You can see friggin daylight under the square.

 

I mean it is not just a little air gap here.  No wonder the F-705F channel on top looked like it had twist in it.

No, I am not chastising the angle i.e.: "bad angle". I did, however, want to throw it out in the snow bank behind the house which is now a snow-ice cube.....

I thought that maybe it was something I did to the F-705G-L angle while I had it in the vise and doing the fabrication so I got the original stock out and put the square to it.  The hole friggin length of it was mis-formed.

I had some other small pieces of the AA6 angle from the wing kit left over and you can see that they were properly formed.  This angle looks great.  I will be re-fabricating the F-705G's.  One builder induced error and one material problem.  What are the chances?????

We assembled the seat ribs and the baggage compartment ribs to come up with a strategy for wiring all equipment that is going to be going into the plane.  You can see some of my sharpie notes on the ribs where I need to enlarge holes or drill additional ones.  I think I have a plan that will ensure I won't be introducing a ton of shavings after I have this thing skinned.

Just another angle.  Where are my seats???  Lets put them in.  I promised Tami that we would get the first engine start in before Christmas.  (I just didn't tell her which one, and I don't think that she picked up on that subtle omission)

By the end of the day, Kevin and I had come up with a full "to-do" list.  We had to call it quits as I ran out of whiteboard space.

We ended up not getting as much behind us as we both had hoped, but we did make some good headway when developing a strategy on how we (I) would handle upcoming installations of wiring.