Welding away

Here I am tacking the lower rear crossmember.

This is what we got at the end of the day. So far we are real happy with how square it is. We use a scrap piece of pipe to complete the box where the rear spar carry through will be. According to Earl you should sit in your frame and make airplane noises before anything is finalized on the cabin. I am a tall guy (6'4") so we will be moving the seat back 3" or so. The girls were real good today.

Making a box

Todays job was to get all the cross members in the cabin area. We are making the big boy version (42").

Broken TV

Today we worked on the fuse again. It was a cold day. I needed to have my kids with me so I dressed the real warm and set them up some movies in the hangar. If you look you will see that the TV plastic is all destroyed. My mother-in-law gave me this TV because the plastic started to crack off of it. Now there is no plastic left on it but it gets great reception with a piece of safety wire for an antenna. I had an old DVD player that I hooked up to it. Worked great. Note the speakers.

Full Size Rib

Here is how I did my full size ribs. I will use this rib as a template for the leading edge as well as for the rest of the full ribs. My trim bit in my router should make quick work of the rest of the full size ribs.

Rib Nose

I made the first nose piece using my disk grinder then used it as a patter to make the other 4 using my router. I just screwed them together. I know that there is only 3 in the pic but the other is in the jig.

This is my plan of action on the full length ribs. Instead of cutting them short and then later adding a piece to round out the rib, I am going to make the rounded lead edge right into the rib. This should make things a little easier(????) and stronger for sure. It will allow the tip wood insert to be sandwiched in between the plywood skins. This plywood that I am using for this part is a 9 ply birch with no voids. Earlier I tried to soak it and get it to delaminate. It would not come apart at all. This might be a hint heavier than the plans version, but not enough to ever notice.

Christmas Ribs

Here is a pic of one of my fourteen finished ribs. I used a trim bit in a router to cut the excess material off the gussets to make the edges match the top and bottom cap strips. Later I want to use a 45 deg bit so that I can bevel the edges away of the gussets so that they will not show when the wing is covered.

I thought that this was a pretty cool pic. The whole time I was making the ribs I was worried that they would not match very good. I was wrong. They look pretty good. I hope Dad is surprised.

2nd Fuse Sid Out of Jig

Finally the second fuse side is tacked and out of the jig. This is probably one of the coolest days in the build process to date. Lots of excitement. Dad and I passed the torch back and forth across the jig to get all the joints tacked.
ATTENTION
Those of you that are using MDF board for a table top, Don't spend much time between fuse sides. We laid the jig out about a year ago and built the first side probably 9 months ago. When we got ready to tack the 2ND side we laid the first side over the second and it did not mach up very well. There was probably 1/4" difference from firewall to tail post. Our fix was to put the first side back in the jig and redo the blocks. After we did this everything went pretty smooth and the second side came out like the first. I guess the MDF expanded due to moisture. Pics to come.