With the fuselage doublers glued in place, and all the excess glue cleaned up, its time to start assembling the fuselage. A few words on the fuselage first. Sig had designed this fuselage so it's almost impossible to build it crooked. It is built using a large number of interlocking tabs for all of the pieces, and this aids in assembling the fuselage and pulling any warp out of the fuselage. As long as all of the fuselage pieces are in place, and all the interlocking tabs are connected the fuselage will come out straight. When we start applying glue to assemble the fuselage it's important to keep in mind that all of the fuselage needs to be in place when the glue is drying. This will ensure that the fuselage remains straight while the glue is drying. Also, another important point to note is that during the first steps of the fuselage assembly we are putting it together WITHOUT glue, just merely fitting all the pieces together and holding them in place with rubber bands. DO NOT get in a hurry and start applying glue until the instructions tell us to.

As we assemble the fuselage we'll start where we should be already, with both sides to the fuselage laying next to each other mirrored from each other (picture #1). The first thing we will do is flip one side of the fuselage over on top of the other (pictures #2 and #3). We'll need to make sure that the two sides of the fuselage are matched up and aligned with each other. I used the same trick as I did when gluing in the fuselage doublers, I used the wing dowel mounting holes to line up the two fuselage sides. Simply insert the two dowel rods into the two holes in the fuselage side (picture #4), this will line up the two fuselage sides so that they are properly aligned. Once we have to the sides aligned we need to tape the two halves together at the tail end of the fuselage. Wrap masking tape around the end of the fuselage halves so that they are securely connected together (picture #5). Once you have this tape in place you can remove the two dowel rods.

With the fuselage sides secured at the tail it's time start placing formers into the fuselage. As I said above, DO NOT US ANY GLUE AT THIS TIME. As we place the formers in the fuselage we will be using rubber bands around the fuselage to put pressure on the fuselage sides and hold the formers in place. You don't need a lot of rubber bands to hold the fuselage in place, but you do want enough to make sure the formers don't fall out as we proceed. A couple of rubber bands on either side of the former should be enough to hold it in place for now. As we place the formers it's also important to note that you place them in the fuselage correctly, meaning that we need to pay attention to the top and the front of the former. This is where labeling the formers like we did at the start of the project comes in handy. As we proceed with putting the formers in place, and assembling the fuselage, if you have any questions make sure you take the time to reference back to the plans to make sure you understand what we are doing here. We'll start with former #2 (the second former back). Simply spread the sides lift the 2 sides apart and place the former in position. Slide a couple of rubber bands down the fuselage and place one on either side of F2 (pictures #6, #7, and #8). Next we'll put F1 (firewall) in place. We'll do the same here as with F2. Put it in place and put a rubber band on either side of it to hold it in place (picture #9). Since we now have rubber bands holding the fuselage in place, we'll need to put the next former in place a little differently. Just spread the fuselage sides apart a little bit and place the F3 former inside the fuselage (picture #10). Once you have it inside the fuselage rotate it into place (picture #11), and then put a couple of rubber bands around the fuselage to hold it in place (picture #12).

Since there is a limit of 12 pictures per post, I'll spread these steps over several posts.

Pictures
1. Both fuselage sides laying next to each other.
2. Stack fuselage sides on top of each other.
3. Both fuselage side stacked on top of each other.
4. Use the wing dowels to align the two fuselage sides.
5. Use tape at the tail of the fuselage to hold them together.
6. Place F2 former in place.
7. Set F2 in place.
8. Slide rubber bands around fuselage at F2 to hold it in place.
9. Place F1 (firewall) in place and use rubber bands to secure it in place.
10. Place F3 former inside fuselage.
11. Rotate F3 into place.
12. Put rubber bands around fuselage to hold F3 in place.

Until next time

Ken