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