Fuselage sides

Select 4 pieces of flat, straight,, very nice C Grain 4-6 lb 1/8" balsa for the fuselage sides. Try to keep the weight around 26 grams or so.

Begin by marking a center line down the sheet, end to end. Now at the ends, measure out 1 3/4" and make marks.

Using a long straight edge, connect the marks and cut away the excess just outside of the marks. With a long, flat bar sander, true up the edges so that when you lay the piece flat on the table, it touches nicely all the way down.

Now refer to the plans and use a good square corner for your tail post, which all measurements will be taken from. Notet he location of the splice cut, and make the cut.

Paying no attention yet to the length of the front piece, match up the cut on the front piece. You should be able to butt them together flat on a table against a straight edge, and the edge follow the straight edge from one piece to the next.

Using a piece of scrap from what you just cut away, make your splice joint piece. Make sure the grain runs accross the joint in the same direction as the fuse sides. Leave 1/4" at the edges for the stringers! the bottom will be a little closer because of the cut angle, so just make it a little shorter.

Lay the whole thing on a piece of wax paper and glue it together, using a long straight edge to guide you in keeping it straight. Remember to make a right AND LEFT side. Make sure your center line marks will be on the inside of the fuse.

After you have this made, measure the left side down the length from the squared tail post. The total length of the left side when laid flat should be 63 5/8" long at the center line. make a mark at this point on the C/L. The total length of the right side whould be 63 3/8". Again make a mark.

Using a protractor, mark a line at 1.5 degrees tilted DOWN at the mark location. Cut this away, this is where the firewall lines up.

Now lay the right fuse side down on the plans, and line up the rear TOP corner with the rear top corner shown on the plans at the tail post. The angles do not match, but that's fine, we'll make this cut later.

Transfer the former locations to the fuselage sides. This line marks the front edge of the formers.