Fuselage - Forward Section
It's been a long time since I updated the log, so what's up, you ask? I'm sure that some nay sayers are saying "I knew he would give up, he never finishes anything, I told you so." Well, hold on, pardner, I haven't given up, I just went on vacation for the last two weeks. It's hard to do anything on the project when you're in the middle of the Pacific. I don't know how those builders in Hawaii ever get anything done.
Anyway, we got back too late last week to do any work on the airplane. Then, I was sick most of the week, and I couldn't do anything yesterday, blah, blah, blah. However, I really wanted to get the fuselage right-side-up this weekend, so I went out in the garage, er, airplane factory, and proceeded to "roll er over", the ole "bottoms down", "tits non ariba", so to speak. That's right, as they say in the manual, we "Tipped the Canoe" today (actually, I just looked at the manual, and it says "Rolling Over the Canoe"--close enough).
This should have been a relatively simple task, maybe all of 5 minutes, but as is so often the case, I have a real knack for turning even the simplest of tasks into the most complex of operations. Ok, it wasn't all that complex, but I did manage to make it a lot harder than it should have been.
How did I do that? Well, as usual, I tried to do it on my own. I got the fuselage about half way over, when I figured out that I was probably going to crush the bottom piece on the center section that sticks out. About this time, one of the sawhorses moved out of position, and I was not able to set the fuselage back down without crushing something. Things started to get a little heavy, and I really didn't want to drop this thing after working on it for a year, so I did what anyone would do, I called for my wife to come help. As usual, she ignored me, so I yelled for her, and she continued to pretend that she could not hear me. It was pretty clear I was not going to get any help anytime soon. Anyway, I guess I was not in that bad a position, because I managed to get the sawhorse back into position, and I set the fuselage back down on the saw horses, upside down (down side up), whatever.
Then, I went and got Patricia to help, like I should have done in the first place. We managed to roll it over and set it on the floor. So, the fuselage is sitting right side up, and we can proceed with building the other half.
 | No one to take any pictures of rolling it over, so we just have a shot of it sitting on the floor. With the sawhorses underneath, the fuselage was too high, so it is sitting on the floor for now. |
 | After my solo experience I removed several clecos on both sides where the sawhorses were, but I guess I missed this one next to the spar slots ... |
 | ... as well as this one in the middle of the AFT section. There's $.70 down the drain. |
 | With the fuselage sitting on the floor, I propped up the back end ... |
 | ... and leveled things. |
 | Sitting on the floor is just not going to work out--it's too low to work on. It looks like I need a stand of some sort, just like everyone else, big suprise. |