Category: Fuselage

Over the weekend I started preparing the port-side outer fuselage skin for installation. There are a few steps to do before installing it: Lightly abrade the skin near rivet locations (for better paint adhesion under the countersunk rivet head) Dimple the forward rivet locations Attach NACA duct Roll edges...

On Monday I began the installation of the skins on the port side of the the fuselage. Like on the starboard side, I started with the interior skins. I found that the holes along the bottom of the skin were drilled differently than the starboard side, and supporting installing...

Today I worked on the nose gear a bit as well as continuing to rivet on the fuselage side skin. A recent Kitplanes article recommended using JB Weld with rivnuts, so I did exactly that for the towbar brackets that attach to the nose gear fork. In addition, I...

I’ve learned a few things as I tried to install countersunk rivets on my fuselage, which I’m capturing in this post. In summary, the rivets I originally started using (POP AK41H and AK51H) are not suitable for use on the fuselage, but I found an alternative part that’s readily...

Per a comment on my previous post from Peter, here’s a few pictures showing what the antenna will look like on top of the rear fuselage....

While I wait for replacement rivets for the side skins, I worked on a few miscellaneous tasks. Finished assembly of one of the front seats Installed rivets into rear fuselage skins – I purposely left it cleco’d in a ready-to-close state in case I thought of any last-minute changes...

EDIT 8/5/2020: the AK51H rivets identified below won’t work. See my later post regarding countersunk rivets. In my part 2 post regarding the fuselage side skin install, I noted that the TSi instructs you to use 4.0mm rivets to attach the skin in the dimpled locations, rather than 3.2mm...

I found an online vendor, Prismatic Powders, that offers powder coat paint in a large variety of colors. My goal is to find a color that will complement the upholstery color, so in this case, something of a dark gray tone. This color will be applied to the throttle...

After working on a lot of small prep tasks the last week or so, I’ve been anxiously looking forward to riveting the side skin to the fuselage. Today, my patience was rewarded and I was finally able to pull some rivets! The last of the small tasks I had...

I was only able to log about an hour on 14 July. I started to install the long side rail angle (CF-ANG-010-R-C) that runs the length of the side skin, as well as a number of gussets that connect this rail to the uprights. The gussets share a number...