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Removed the side skins. Attached the other half of the F-704 and secured it with the wood spacers and bolts. I had trouble getting one of the bolts in all of the way. It’s the same area where I had trouble removing the bolts when I was riveting the F-704 together. I’ll have to look at it later when I have the parts disassembled. I might have tweaked one of the side supports.
Next I bent the corners of the side skins. They turned out pretty good, but I’ll do some more tweaking on them when I disassemble the beast. I didn’t get a tight enough angle at the forward corner.
I had a heck of a time getting the side skins to line up right around the F-706 and corner ribs. Adele and Julie were both helping me. I finally tried temporarily moving the sawhorse from under the F-704 to under the F-705 and bingo. Everything lined up. I clecoed the side skin to the F-706, then F-705, and then the F-704.
Before I had the side skins completely clecoed on, I was wondering if the longerons and skins were actually going to line up. It seemed that everything was slightly off. But after the skins went on, it looks great. The mark I made for the downward bend in the longeron aligns with the downward angle in the side skin, and the longeron follows the skin forward from there. I know everybody says this, but the longerons really lined up perfectly.
I only did a few time-consuming steps today. It’s better to take some extra time with things like bending the longerons and side skins. Those are not parts you want to re-order.
The fuselage is really solid and looks huge in my ever diminishing garage.