Hit a small milestone today, put the other fuselage side on to the fuselage making it one piece.

To get to this point took a bit of work as I was doing quite a bit of modification to the fuselage structure. Now that the major portion is assembled things should pick up a little speed. The next phase of construction is to add the gear plates to the fuselage to create a little strength prior to pulling the rear fuselage sides together. I don't want to risk warping the fuselage during the bending process so the more structure I can add to the front the more resistant to warping it should be.

The front gear plate was easy....Just filled in the groove on the stock plate, laminated the ply gear doubler onto the plate, and drilled for the blind nuts. Only issue at this point was the outer blind nuts. The gear mounts are wide enough to cause the blind nuts to interfere with the fuselage sides. Easily solved by grinding down one side of the blind nut. Installed and epoxied in place.

The rear mount will be a custom piece as the Robart gear I am using is slightly shorter (Front to rear) than the stock setup. I knew this was going to happen and modified the fuselage to fit. The rear plate will be slightly longer than stock.

Stay tuned!

Phil