Category: Center Fuselage

Updated the Paint Booth

Now that fall has arrived, I have fewer opportunities to prime parts outside, especially during the week, so I occasionally need to prime a part inside my garage. I decided to update my paint booth a bit, adding a suction fan and a filter to control the dust and...

Firewall Brackets

I’m trying to be mindful of which holes to rivet and which holes to leave open as I go through assembly of the fuselage. I’ve gotten to a point where the manual is getting more and more confusing to follow, while various builder blogs I refer to recommend a...

Research into Flush Rivets and a Nice Workshop Upgrade

EDIT 8/5/2020: the AK41H rivets identified below won’t work. See my later post regarding the side skin install. Last winter my garage was far too cold to work in, especially during January and February, and the garage doors were too leaky to justify heating the space, which is about...

Firewall and First Side Skin

I prepped a bunch of side channels so that I could start attaching the side skins and firewall. I wanted to at least test fit the side skins (per suggestion from Simon K., who has already finished building his Sling 4) – but then take them off as Ive...

Torque Tubes Part 4

Hopefully this is the last significant update on the torque tubes for a while. A made a few small adjustments to the floor ribs and that seems to have improved the friction issue. There’s still some resistance, but I think that’s unavoidable since there are 4 bushings. I recorded...

Torque Tubes Part 3

Another 2 hours playing with torque tubes. I really don’t know what is the acceptable level of friction. It bugs me that the bushings rotate freely on the tube when it’s out of the fuselage, but the when I put the tube in and start clecoing down the close...

Torque Tubes Part II

With the joysticks done, I turned my attention back to the flap and elevator torque tubes in the center fuselage. I quickly discovered that none of these will go together easily; each bracket that holds a bushing has needed *some* kind of modification so far. For these torque tubes,...

Joystick Install Part 2

I spent about an hour on joysticks again. My pilot-side joystick moves freely, but I found that I hadn’t yet tightened down the copilot-side bracket that attaches the joystick torque tube to the main spar carry-thru assembly — that’s why it was moving so easily! As soon as I...

Rudder Pedals and Evil Bushings!

I spent far too many hours this weekend trying to get various torque tubes that ride in bushings to turn smoothly. I gave up on the rear elevator torque tube for now, and decided to put in the rudder pedal hardware. The rudder pedals are also torque tubes that...

More Torque Tube Work

Another two hours on torque tubes, this time trying to get the rear torque tube to move smoothly. Because this tube rests on three bushings (and not just the ends), they need to be lined up perfectly, which is not easy. To achieve that, I’ve had to grind down...