a few more long days, 34 hours, 400 hours total

The last couple of weekends have been rainy so I got a few long days work in.
I also did some late nights after work during the week.
I estimate around 34 hours were put in over the last couple of weeks and that brings the grand total on the project so far to 400 hours.

I finished up the lower firewall, the bottom skin, the bottom corner skins, the front footwell area and started on the side supports and the infamous longerons.
It was all easy work, most of the time was spent priming, and now top coating too since there are visible cabin areas being assembled.
And of course riveting it all together.

The longerons are the long aluminium angle sections that run the full length of the fuselage area and tie together everything from the firewall to the tailcone.
They are obviously very important pieces, and are infamous amongst RV-12 builders as being one of the more difficult tasks of the whole project.

Vans supplies some 1/8th inch thich 3/4 angle about 8 feet long and a page of instructions on how to work the piece to the correct shape.
I actually found this to be a really fun part of the project, one of the best bits so far in fact.

First you have to open up the angle from 90 degrees to 95.4 degrees for the first 12 inches or so of the longeron, then you twist the angle 2.7 degrees so that the top is in line with the rest of the longeron, leaving the first 12 inches with an angle sticking out at 5.4 degrees.
You do that by bashing on it with a lump hammer with the sides on a concrete floor until it opens up.
fun !.
then you get a template for a curve and have to bend the longeron laterally to match the pattern by bashing it one inch at a time in a vice.
that twists the piece out of square on the top surface, so then you twist it back with pliers until you have a nice complicated shape for the edge of the fuselage.

I spent a few hours enjoying that and when I did a test fit agains the fuselage it fit perfectly !
I was very pleased with that.

Now I just need to to the mirror image shape for the other side, and then I can get the side panels on, at which point I can actually sit in it and start making airplane noises :)

Here's how it looks today
notice the high temp enamelled firewall.

This is the finished longeron, you can't really tell how complicated the shape is from the photo.

This is the opened up angle.
Notice that the top is flush all the way along the longeron, but the twist is on the side and only for the first 12 inches or so where it smooths out to 90 degrees, then starts the curve laterally to follow the fuselage shape.