isf2008

My apologies for not posting over the last few days - been a very hectic work schedule. Plus, I had to get a few things off the honeydo list... Anyway - I've been working on the fuselage over the last few days and am going to start with building the fuse sides.

Fuselage Build:

- The fuse is built out of laminated balsa parts. The main front section is made up of two layers, each with three parts. Each layer is glued together separately (see the first four photos). The inner layer has all the locating notches for the firewall, formers and tank floor with the outer layer just being plain. You can see from the photos that theinner and outer plies run cross-grain to each other. I used thick CAto join the parts.
- Once theinner and outer plies are made, a quick sanding gets rid of any lumps and bumps, and then its time to laminate the plies together. The manual says to use gorilla glue, but after reading the cautions in the manual and the posting by bonzerr1 I decided to use structural epoxy (photo 5). While there are several products on the market I use G-2 by System Three Resins. The product mixes 2 parts resin to 1 part hardener. I use a small scale and mix by weight. This product has a long open time (45 minutes) and takes roughly 24 hours to cure.This gives the glue an opportunity to soak into the wood. The resulting bond is really strong and not brittle. The plies are located using several dowels. I also used some straight pins and a bunch of weights to hold the parts together. Photo 6 shows the fuse sides laminated together. Of particular importance is that you need to make a left and a right.

Next post will continue with the fuselage build...