Moving Forward

Three solid days working on the Aicam.  Would have been further along but a few bad rivets held up progress.  CherryMax rivets are more difficult to remove than standards rivets plus there is some tight access.  Had to put in these shear clips.  There are several bulkheads with these.  The upper ones are not too hard to get to but the lower ones are nasty.

This is one half of a main bulkhead that will support the rear of the wing and the engines.

These are shear clips at the bottom skin.  I swapped some structural AD rivets for the Cherrys because it was better access.  The head of the pull rivet gun is large.  It was much easier to use an offset rivet set and a bucking bar.  There are two more stations with these clips.  Don't worry, I didn't leave out any rivets.  The plans say just do the top and bottom rows, probably because only four rivets tie into the longeron

This is a brace used to insert a step so you will be able to check the engines out.  It ties to the longerons and a bulkhead with a doubler.  Here it is clecoed in.

And here it is riveted up.

I have temporarily assembled the other half of the bulkhead.  The plans are lacking a few details here  and I don't want to get ahead of myself.

I should get to this tomorrow night.  Then I will lay out the rest of the cargo section.  That should be straightforward.  The next major item will be the landing gear bulkhead.  It is stout!

Bleriot is suffering from the heat, so she likes to lay low.

Meanwhile Pumpkin usually watches me type when I do the blog.

Eye Of The Tiger

I had actually done more yesterday than the blog documented so here is a shot of where I started this morning.

This is all clecoed together for now.

Since painting is done for now it was time to rearrange the shop and raise the paint booth up and out of the way.

Next, it was time to rivet the longerons together.  Though the plans say do this before installation I clecoed them in place so they would be aligned properly, even though they were originally drilled in place.  This is the rearmost splice near the tail cone.  These were Avex rivets which have a looser tolerance than the CherryMax.  There are three splices here.  One on either upper side longeron and the large plate on the bottom.  The teardrop hole on the side is where the rudder cables will exit the fuselage skin.  Tomorrow I have to install the shear clips on the longeron where there are two holes just behind the frame on the right of the picture.  There are clips top and bottom. These should be a lot of fun!

This is the splice more forward.  It uses CherryMax rivets and an two internal splice plates.

And here are the ones at the bottom cargo bay splice.

One of these didn't cinch up he splice plate very well and I had to drill it out.  Drilling out a CherryMAx is a bitch because of the steel stem.  I went oversize with a AD structural rivet.

It is the most forward rivet on the top.  Note there are rivets on the underside of these longeron channels too.

Finally, a shot of Pumpkin, one of the indoor cats and the reason for the label of today's blog.

Now We're Getting Somewhere

Finished the last of the painting for now.  Here are the parts, mostly stringers and clips.

Now it is time to start assembly so it begins to look like an airplane (not that an Aircam looks like everyone's idea of an airplane).

So it starts at the tail cone that was riveted together earlier this week and I added the longerons.

The plate in the middle is the tail wheel spring attachment stiffener.  Here is a shot of the inside.

Next I laid out the outer longerons.

After the Monaco race this morning I  will get a full day in.

Foamy

Riveted the inspection cover doublers into the lower skin.  This was a straightforward job.

The next task is to rivet the bulkhead structure that I assembled over the last few days to the bottom skin.  Before I do that I wanted to make a way for the tailwheel spring bolt spacer to stay in place.  This is a short piece of aluminum tubing that is placed between the U shaped bottom longeron and the bottom skin.  It prevents collapsing the longeron when you tighten the bolt.  The problem is it is inaccessible and when you remove the bolt and it could slip out of position and then you are hosed.  I decided to get some spray on insulation foam and make a foam block to hold it.

The foam is in between the blue tape and the spacer is on the left.  I decided to let the foam sit for 24 hours and then I will trim it flush with the bottom of the longeron and put in the hole.  Should be able to rivet this together tomorrow.

It was another scorcher today.  Bleriot doesn't like the heat, she has too much fur.

She sympathizes with her friend BC.

Champ On Final - Watch Out Mr. Snapper!

Found a few more pieces to assemble.  Decided to do a bulkhead assembly.

This assembly consists of the bulkhead, a thick plate stiffener and two brackets for the vertical stabilizer.  Two more of the black, anodized brackets will be added later.  I plan to go the extra distance with the building of the plane by installing every rivet with a coat of epoxy paint.  This is a lot of trouble, or "the long run for the short slide", as my friend Jerry would say.  Here are the 76 rivets primed and ready to go.

 The finished bulkhead:

Later Monte showed up so we decided to put the sun to bed.  Here we are on final:

I caught a glimpse of some movement on the runway earlier today when I went to feed the chickens.  Here is Mr. Snapper trying to find some water.

I was going to help him along his way out of the sun but he wasn't having any of that!  I think he could give Bleriot a lesson in what biting the hand that feeds you really means.

This could be the start of something big!

Didn't have enough paint to finish the last batch of parts so the assembly process has begun!!

Step 83 calls for the assembly of the last bulkhead.  Here are the components laid out prior to assembly.

Next I bolted them together and riveted them together.  The rivets near the large aluminum machined frame had so little clearance I had to use my special limited clearance hand puller.

Then this is attached to the center longeron with some gussets.

Finally, the next bulkhead and elevator control brackets are installed.  I haven't quite finished this step yet.

Sorry, no picture of Bleriot today but I did get one of the bunny rabbit that has taken up near the chicken pin.

A pet for our pets.

Minor Update

All those parts you saw last time are now golden from Alodine:

And here is a picture of Bleriot.  It's been a while.

Should make all of those parts white tomorrow night.  Signing off!

I Was Framed!

The painting continues.  I made some coat rack style supports so that I could do all the frames in one session.

With just one frame on they seemed fine but when I loaded them up in the booth it had some sag.

Plus they didn't slide around as easily as I had hoped but only one major holiday in the paint.

Then today I started the small stuff.  Here they are laid out for there first coat after being in the alodine tank.

I s]didn't get a shot after the paint but tomorrow I'll flip them over and finish them.  Also tomorrow I'll alodine these smaller parts for painting later in the week.

This should be a lot of fun.