Well I have settled on a hatch technique. I will get to that in a bit, but I don’t want to get side tracked from reporting the build. It’s been a bit since I’ve updated the thread with pictures and progress. I am actually at the point where I am sheeting the fuselage and the sticks are starting t to resemble a HOG – very cool. [8D]

The fuselage came together very quickly thanks to SIG’s interlocking design – very much like a jigsaw puzzle. The first 2 elements to come together were the firewall and Former F3. I attached the firewall with epoxy and made sure it was at right angles to the fuselage. Once the epoxy cured, I CA’d F3 to the fuselage side keeping it square to the side. Next step is to repeat the process with the opposite fuselage side. Pictures 1 and 2 show these steps completed.

The next few steps happened quickly and I didn’t snap many pictures (sorry). This is where the jigsaw element really becomes evident. The instructions basically have you rubber band all formers, along with the fuselage bottom rear, fuselage top and stab support together. Once this was dry fit, I spent a fair amount of time making sure everything was square. This is an important step because once you hit the structure with CA, it ain’t gonna move. Now before I started this dry fit exercise I decided to cut holes in the bottoms of the formers in order to route an antenna tube. You can see the installed tube in Picture4.

I used Medium CA for this job and carefully started at former F5 and worked my way to the back of the plane. After each former, I stopped and checked to see that everything remained square. I did this all the way former F8. I then went an CA’d the fuselage top in place. Finally I went back over all the joints (from the inside) with thin CA and let it wick into all the joints. Pictures 3 and 4 show the fuselage at this stage.

Next up was adding the triangle supports to the firewall (picture5).

Next up – adding the fuel tank.

Picture1 – Started the Fuselage – Former F3 and Firewall in Place
Picture2 – Another angle of the Firewall and F3 in place
Picture3 – Fuselage side, once all the jigsaw pieces were CA’d together
Picture4 – Different angle of the fuse; notice the antenna tube already in place
Picture5 – Firewall supports in place