Drilling the rear spars before it's on the gear.

Mornin' all.
While working on Philip's -7A yesterday, leaning over the sides of the fuselage doing brake lines, a thought occurred to me. A friend of mine drilled the rear spars of a quickbuild, while the fuselage sat on a platform about a foot high. The wings were done and since the platform is very stable, it's easy to level the fuselage with wooden shims and a sawhorse under the rear bulkead of the fuselage.

Slide the wings in, check for sweep, set the incidence and drill. No chance of the fuselage falling off jacks or concrete blocks or whatever.

Have any of you guys done this? Results?

Regards,

Shouldn't be a problem.

I've never done it this way, but I can't imagine why it would be a problem. The airplane doesn't know where the landing gear is when it is flying anyway.
Just make sure that all of the main spar bolts are in place.

Absolutely! I never considered waiting until the fuselage was on the gear, and it all worked out just fine. I don't see any advantage to having it on the gear, in fact I think it's much easier to NOT have it on the gear for the reasons you mention.

I also did mine before it was on the gear, and it went well.

Rear Spar

Did mine off gear, very easy to do that way. Like you pointed out, easy to shim fuse to get it level in all axis first, and it stays put till you're done.
Mike H 9A/8A

what would a fuse platform look like?

pierre smith said:

the fuselage sat on a platform about a foot high. The wings were done and since the platform is very stable, it's easy to level the fuselage with wooden shims and a sawhorse under the rear bulkead of the fuselage.

Click to expand...

I'm thinking of doing exactly this... does anyone have any good platform designs or pictures? I've seen Rudi's but I can't make anything close to that nice

How big would the platform need to be? Maybe from the firewall back to about F-705? I was thinking of a simple 2x4 frame, with doubled up legs. Not sure about the top... OSB with carpet?

I've seen someone make something out of milk crates, but I'm looking for something a bit more stable.

Please someone have pity on a poor carpentry-challenged builder and post a pic or three...

IowaRV9Dreamer said:

I'm thinking of doing exactly this... does anyone have any good platform designs or pictures? I've seen Rudi's but I can't make anything close to that nice

How big would the platform need to be? Maybe from the firewall back to about F-705? I was thinking of a simple 2x4 frame, with doubled up legs. Not sure about the top... OSB with carpet?

I've seen someone make something out of milk crates, but I'm looking for something a bit more stable.

Please someone have pity on a poor carpentry-challenged builder and post a pic or three...

Click to expand...

Dave-See Bill Repucci's website for his rolling cart/platform. I copied it and it worked great!

I made a platform out of 2x6's and 2x4's... then put a few pivoting castors on the bottom. Used it all throughout fuselage construction. Kept the fuse at perfect height and could easily be rolled around the shop.

pierre smith said:

Mornin' all.
While working on Philip's -7A yesterday, leaning over the sides of the fuselage doing brake lines, a thought occurred to me. A friend of mine drilled the rear spars of a quickbuild, while the fuselage sat on a platform about a foot high. The wings were done and since the platform is very stable, it's easy to level the fuselage with wooden shims and a sawhorse under the rear bulkead of the fuselage.

Slide the wings in, check for sweep, set the incidence and drill. No chance of the fuselage falling off jacks or concrete blocks or whatever.

Have any of you guys done this? Results?

Regards,

Click to expand...

Pierre: That is how I did it, with the fuselage sitting on a one foot high sawhorse topped with carpet. BTW, I recommend not drawing a line on the floor when setting the sweepback, but rather using a fishing line stretched from tip to tip. The fishing line can be held in place on the floor with tape and easily moved to align with the four plumb bobs. Worth the time to make a set of drill blocks for drilling the rear spar, too.

I had the Grove gear on my 8 and then decided to take them back off to do the wing hanging/incedence stuff.

I built a custom saw horse that fits right across the area where the gear would go and it worked out great. VERY stable and was easy to level.

With the gear on, I'd have had to raise the tail up into the rafters of my garage since I had the vertical stab already mounted for good.

I made it about 2 feet tall and it is perfect for me. I can easily lay under the wings and fuse to work, drill, whatever is needed and it's still easy enough to climb in and work inside the fuse as well.

I was also surprised that when the first wing went on, it didn't tip over.
I had placed a support under it just incase, but the sawhorse ended up being wide enough to keep it just balanced/stable enough to keep it from tipping.

I used two cement blocks, a rug, and the wooden TE smasher we made to support the fuselage under the center section and a short sawhorse with blanket to supprt the tail end. Wooden carpenters shims were used to level the plane along with moving the rear sawhorse. This was very easy to work this way. Just double check level and position just before you drill.

Roberta

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Thanks everybody....

.....Roberta, the airplane sits just about the same height as yours did, on a carpeted wooden stand.

Regards,