BUT FIRST, TO GET THE SHOP READY
In order to move on to the fuselage, I had to move some items around in my hangar first. It was not a big deal at all. In fact, I kind of rather enjoyed getting a new look and feel after spending so long on the wings.
It is a bit difficult to see, but off to the side I have stowed my wings on their cradle. Then, I was able to move my fuselage dead center of my hangar where it will hopefully spend the rest of its days! Except for paint of course… my lease has a whole list of really good rules against painting in your hangar. Having my fuselage cradle was also quite nice. I just rolled it out of a corner and into the spotlight.
NOW, TO TEAR IT ALL APART
I did a full inventory, as is good practice, upon receiving my QB fuselage last summer. Since then, various delays and working on the wings has prevented me from digging any deeper into the fuselage itself. That all changed today. I think a good practice when going the QB route is to still go through the instructions line by line and ensure that each step was completed correctly and to your standards. I will say that on occasion I have found the odd rivet or so that I felt compelled to drill out and replace or some items I have removed in order to install some custom modifications.
This is certainly tedious work. When reviewing the QB plans, there are many panels that were only pop riveted in place. These rivets were placed deliberately so that they could be drilled out by the builder. Each of these floor, seat, and side panels all came out relatively easily, so no real complaints there. In some ways, it is nice to see them in place so you can get an idea of what the fuse will look like closed up. This can make it easier to make plans for what you want to do before closing up. One more picture of the removed floor panels.
Not much else today – just a lot of work in order to be ready to do more work. Looking forward to settling in to a rhythm here again soon.