Fuselage Kit

Tonight I continued riveting the roll bar, and have both straps riveted to the forward roll bar assembly.

After talking to Kevin at Vans, I decided I can save the mistake I made in the roll bar by creating a sandwich of aluminum around the mistskenly countersunk part. I made up a doubler, and ordered some longer cherrymax rivets.

I also started riveting the roll bar straps into place.

Tonight I finished final drilling the roll-bar, and then countersunk all of the holes. Unfortunately I made a silly mistake and countersunk 6 holes that didn’t need it. I think I’ll need to rebuild the roll-bar, but emailed Vans just in case there’s some kind of safe solution. It was really annoying to realize my mistake and the implications of having to order a whole new roll-bar and redo all this work. Unfortunately I think I’ll need to replace everything, since it’s all match-drilled.

Tonight I clecoed the forward and aft roll bar assemblies together using the two straps. The straps are lengths of flat aluminum, which require some bending to help them align with the curves of the roll bar. I wasn’t able to get them to bend very well, but I managed to get enough bend to make assembly easy.

I started the final drilling process, but need to take it all apart, debur, then reassemble and continue. I’m doing it that way to prevent too much build up of shavings that might cause a misalignment issue.

Tonight I clecoed then riveted the sections of the roll bar to make the forward and aft halves of the roll bar. This is done by clecoing each section to the fuselage and then riveting a plate in place to join the two sides of each half. Alignment was a little tricky, I had to carefully remove some extra material from the flanges of the forward half, so that they could join correctly.

Tonight I dimpled the roll bar brace and brackets, then riveted the roll bar brace brackets to the roll bar brace.

Today I primed the roll bar components.

Tonight I finished deburring roll bar parts, then cleaned them all in preparation for priming. Hoping to prime parts tomorrow.

Tonight I found all of the roll bar parts, and separated the pieces which needed separating, then deburring them. I couldn’t help clecoing on one side of the roll bar to see how it looked. It adds a new dimension to the fuselage, and somehow puts the whole cockpit into perspective.