Baggage door and turtledeck

The baggage door work is essentially complete now.  The biggest challenge we had was trying to get all the edges to fit properly.  The upper longeron that it mates to has a slight scallop shape, while the lower edge is flat.  To get the upper edge of the baggage door to seal nicely, we added a stiffening bracket with a gentle bow shape to match the shape of the top longeron.  This took several attempts to get right as it was difficult to get the bracket shaped properly so that the top door edge lined up nicely. The bracket itself isn't the prettiest thing in the world, but it works well.

1st attempt at stiffening bracket with an intentional "bow"

Baggage door with final stiffening bracket installed

We also installed Camlock receptacles on the fuselage, and drilled holes in the baggage door for the camlock latches.  These were tested and adjusted, and are working great.

Camlock receptacles riveted in place

Baggage door exterior, with 2 small Camlock latches

The turtledeck was also trimmed, fitted, drilled, and deburred.  It's starting to look more like an airplane as we get more pieces fitted in place.   Hours: 12.5

Footwell panels and Baggage door

We got some good use out of our bead roller/flanging tool to make flanges along some of the edges on the aluminum side panels for the footwells.  This wasn't really required, but it looks and fits nicer, and should also help seal a bit better around some of the edges.   We made the panels out of 0.025" thick aluminum, and each side was individually measured and cut to fit.  It took a few iterations to flange the edges so that they were rounded just the right amount, but that work actually went quicker than we originally thought. We had some extra aluminum just in case we screwed one up and had to remake it, but we didn't have to dip into these extra supplies.
 

Closeup of right panel with flange shown

Bead Roller/Flanging tool with a Tipping Die installed

Left Panel installed with Clecos

We also made progress on the baggage door.  We made this door out of 0.032" aluminum, and also formed the top edge using the bead roller (with a tipping die) so that it had a flange to better mate against the fuselage.  The bottom edge was also flanged to bend around a stringer.  One half of the hinge was drilled and riveted to the door, and the other half was temporarily installed with Clecos to attach it to the fuselage.  We are also adding a stiffener bracket to help keep the door from flexing which should help it seal better when closed.  We installed this bracket temporarily, but have a bit more work to do on it because we want to introduce a small bit of arc to this stiffener to help seal the door better when it latches closed.  We plan to have two latches (not yet installed).  Hopefully this will be enough (with the stiffener) to seal the door along the top and sides with a gasket.  If not, we will have to tweak the design a bit.    Hours:  14.5

Baggage door with hinge installed on left side

Baggage door partially opened.

Doors and footwells

Yet another airplane update, but finally we are able to move onto a topic other than fabric covering.  Before moving onto these tasks, we first burned several holes in the fuselage fabric at locations for various rivet and screw holes (for example, we burned holes for the rivets that will be used to hold the rear windows in place).  After completing this little bit of fabric work, we shifted our attention to other tasks that we want to complete before moving on to priming/painting.  A few of these items are the baggage door, the main entry doors, and aluminum sheets for covering the left and right sides of the footwell. 

Focusing on the footwell area, we first made templates out of posterboard for cutting the aluminum sheets to size, and then we found that we didn't have enough sheetmetal we needed, so we ordered some more 0.025" 6061 alum for this area. We purchased a bead roller/flanging tool, as we wanted to make small flanges at some of the edges, and we have plans to use it for other things in the future, too.  We also ordered some more hinge material which we needed for the baggage door.

While waiting for those items to arrive, we worked on the installation of the right and left cabin doors.  We had previously made the door frames, so needed to align them in the frames and determine placement of the hinge sections for both the door frame and the fuselage. From previous posts in the Wingsforum, we learned that it is best to bias the hinge location outward to help prevent any door interference at the top during opening/closing.  We cut the hinges to size, then drilled and riveted half of the hinge to the top of the door.  Next, we drilled and riveted the other half to the door frame, using the sealed rivets per the plans.  We next installed the doors (to check fit) by mating the two halves and inserting the long hinge pins.

Ed riveting a hinge to the door frame

Michael riveting a hinge to the fuselage

Door frame installed and opened (opens up like a DeLorean)

Next, we are shifting focus again to the right and left footwells, as we received a shipment from Aircraft Spruce and now have the supplies we need.  We adjusted our template to account for a flange, and also practiced a bit with the new flanging tool.   Hours: 11.5