To continue on with our build of the fuselage. The next step is to put on part FT-R (fuselage top rear). To put this part on (and all others that follow) we'll need to slide these down in to place under the rubber bands (pictures #1 and #2). With the FT-R we want to make sure that the servo pushrod slot is on the left side of the plane (picture #3). Next we will slide on the FB-F (fuselage bottom front), sliding it into place under the rubber bands (pictures #4 and #5). The last part we'll need to slide into place is the FB-R (fuselage bottom rear), once again sliding it into place under the rubber bands (pictures #6 and #7). At this point we should have all of the fuselage body parts in place (picture #8). As I said above, as long as all of these parts are in place and all of the interlocking tabs on these parts are locked the fuselage will be straight. It's really a great system for putting a fuselage together. The important thing that we need to remember is as we glue the fuselage together in the next few steps all of the other parts need to be in place to ensure that the fuselage is straight as we build.

With everything in place it's time to start gluing the fuselage together. We'll start with former F2. As you can see in picture #9, I lifted up the former away from the fuselage side in order to get glue underneath the former. If you are using CA glue for this build I recommend that you DO NOT use thin CA. Since all of these parts are made of lite ply it will not give you sufficient bonding strength to hold the fuselage together. I recommend that you use medium or thick CA for assembling the fuselage. After I put glue underneath all of former F2 I use weights (picture #10) to hold the fuselage in place while the glue dried. You might be wondering why I only did one former this time instead of getting more of them done at once. Later on I will do more than one at a time, but I wanted to do the first one by itself so have a good base as I glue the rest of the formers in place. As I glued the F2 former I checked it with a square to make sure that it was properly positioned before I weighted it down to dry.

Pictures
1. Sliding the FT-R into place.
2. The FT-R in place on the fuselage.
3. Make sure the slot for the pushrod is on the left side of the fuselage
4. Slide the FB-F into place.
5. The FB-F in place.
6. Slide the FB-R in place under the rubber bands.
7. The FB-R in place under the rubber bands.
8. Fuselage with all panels in place. Make sure you have enough rubber bands to hold it tightly in place.
9. Applying glue under former F2.
10. Using weights to hold the fuselage steady while the glue dries on F2.


Until next time

Ken