ORIGINAL: doxilia

Tim,

just something else to watch out for - make sure you build the correct amount of down and side thrust into the fuse when installing the FW. If you install it square to the fuse, you could also always add the required angles by shimming your engine mount and/or engine with spacers. The front fuse balsa ring should be installed at the correct angle if you want a concentric spinner. Note that this requires the fuse right side to be slightly shorter at the nose ring.

The order in which to build up the nose (to my mind) would be bottom block followed by fuse chin. I would then tack glue the nose rings onto the spinner backplate and install on to the engine. You'll want a third spacer ring of 1/16'' to 3/32'' balsa between the ply nose ring and backplate which will be tacked onto the backplate. If you use a mount with symmetric screw locations (e.g. BHE), you can then clamp the engine onto the mount (typically as far back as possible) and slide the mount/engine/rings/backplate combination into the bay area with the cylinder vertical. This should show you whether your mount is flush with the FW when your balsa ring is flush with the fuse sides. Adjust engine on mount as required to obtain this. You can then mark and install your mount, engine and glue the ring assembly to the fuse front. Remove backplate and spacer ring, engine and mount. You can then re-install the mount rotated CCW 90* so the cylinder exits the side (from a cutout made after completing the fuse) and complete the fuse top. You might have to build the top without the mount installed as the top engine mount arm might interfere with the first fuse top balsa sheet.

Be careful to only tack glue the first sheet as the fuse top will then be popped off to carve the interior to provide space for that engine mount arm and to eliminate unwanted material. The attached picture might provide some insight.

If all this was clear beforehand, please just disregard it.

David.