busy december as this build year comes to a close, so much done this year

A couple of weeks has passed since my last blog post.  Christmas is a very busy time for everyone and I'm no different.  Two back to back work road trips right before the holidays, but any chance to be in the shop that came up I went.

With the left (pilot) cabin side fit up, time to replicate the right (passenger) side to match.

Used the same method for the matching the cabin longerons, placing them back to back, prior to back drilling them to the skins.

Before heading home one evening, I decided to see what the  cabin width would look like.  Very rough estimate, but liking what I see - lots of room for two people sitting side by side!

Next time in the shop, I decided to compare the cabin sides and they are perfectly matched - everything will be straight and equal once I create the cabin floor and attach it to the rear fuselage.

​Both cabin sides, initial fit-up complete:

A somewhat more accurate placement on the bench using the landing gear channel as a guide.  This picture shows the rear cabin longerons as they bend inwards to match the tapering fuselage in the baggage area: 

Upsizing the cabin side longerons, doublers and uprights to A4 in preparation for debur, prime and assembly.

Further investigation was required regarding the forward edge of the lower cabin doubler.  Shown at bottom right in this photo, it needed to be trimmed back.... but....

The plans show two different things.  Circled in red below the plans show the doubler extending forward to the front edge of the cabin skin.  However the view from the bottom on the same plan drawing (circled in green) shows that the corner has a relief cut.

The cabin skin plan drawing shows the relief notch at the corner.  That seems to match the green circle above.  Time to email Zenith.

While waiting for Zenith to respond to my query, I continued to drill out the cabin parts to the correct size (A4)

I heard back fairly quickly from Zenith and it turns out the drawing in the plans is wrong.  The doubler only extends forward as far as the front most upright angles.  That leaves the notch free to allow the boot cowl skin to form around that corner later.  So with that questioned answered, time to pull everything apart for deburring and prime:

With all holes deburred I put the door sill longerons/angles back in place briefly in order to final sand the cabin skins to match them.  I also stripped the protective plastic of the the outside of the skin along the rivet lines so I can prime the rivet lines ahead of placing rivets:

Added the last two cabin side rivet holes, but only up to A3.  These will be the pilot holes for joining the cabin sides to the rear fuselage.  Still need to bend the rear edge inwards to match too:

Debur, scuff with Scotchbright and clean prior to priming:

Decided to change track a bit while I had room to work on the bench and got started on laying out the cabin floor.  The camera distortion doesn't show it well, but the cabin floor is a tapering rectangle, narrow end (furthest from camera) being the front end towards the firewall:

Laid out the location of the rudder pedal bearing channel and started to secure it with A3 clecoes:

Next headscratcher....  ​I see in my plans that there is a gap above the floor skin between the heel support channel (on the left in pic) and the pedal bearing channel (on the right):

Is there any reason this gap needs to be there?  I don't see anything in the plans that says that the gap needs to be there for other stuff and to my way of thinking it will just be a place to gather dirt, dropped pens, travel snacks debris on long trips etc.

What I was thinking of doing is widening the heel support channel to overlap the rear flange of the pedal support bearing with his eliminate the gap, then riveting both flanges together (green stars):

I asked in the forums and in an email to Zenith and there is no reason not to widen the heel support.  Turns out the gap is a carry over from the 701 design where every chance to save weight was made.  The 750 Super Duty model has already covered this gap in the same way I am suggesting, so no issue to proceed, so I will.

Next up is the lower cabin floor corner longerons.  Cut them to match (one for each side) and mounted them.  This support the cabin sides, so I'll wait to drill them together when fitting the floor into the cabin:

Also on the bottom of the cabin floor is the centre stiffener whih runs from the firewall back to the gear channel.  Additional lateral stiffeners will be added later:

Seat support channel is added on the top side of the cabin skin:

 
Lots left to do on the cabin floor, but off to a good start, next will be the heel support once I fabricate the new wider one:

Back to the cabin sides.  Primed and ready for assembly.

Priming of outside of cabin skins:

Final assembly in progress after priming. I'm waiting to add the long forward and long rear longerons until I confirm where they meet the firewall and cabin:

All of the cabin side A4 rivets are driven with the air hammer, similar to the wing spar caps.  Fortunately, some of these A4 hard rivets are also close enough to the edges of the cabin skin that I can use the rivet squeezer to complete the assembly:

Forward upright now fully installed:

The others I could reach witht e squeezer are the tops of the rear uprights, the doubler L's and the door sill angle.

I set aside the cabin sides for now to work on the fuselage bottom assembly.  First thing was to cleco forward corner doublers to the bottom skin and the fuselage longerons.  Next I clecoed all the diagonals and lateral stiffeners to the fuselage skin:

Installed the riv-nuts that will be the mounting points for the stainless screws to hold the hell-hole access cover in place:

All riv-nuts secure and tested with the screws that will eventually be in place - very happy with how these turned out.

Worked the air rivet gun back and forth equally across the diagonals and lateral stiffeners, leaving the ends free to tuck in the side fuselage skins:

Incredible how rigid the lower fuselage skin is now with the rivets lines across the middle of each bay:

I started to work on the end plate gussets and cross angle, but soon realized the plans don't define at what measured location this gets installed.  Spoke with another builder and he noticed the same thing with his kit and we agreed this needs to wait until the controls they support in the hell hole are installed ensuring correct alignment.

Next up, the front and rear horizontal tail frames.  I'd previously fitted these to the bottom fuselage, now it is time to start building up the box that becomes the tail support area.

Kit builders have this step much easier.  The rear side skins and longerons are drilled already, whereas a scratchbuilder like me needs to think a bit how to place them in the right location relative to the rest of the fuselage.

To that end, it is time to start fitting up the side fuselage skin to the bottom skin.

I decided on starting with the right side, mostly because was closest to the edge of the bench!

I added  a couple of upright boards which are screwed to the bench, then lightly clamped the skin one of them through the cabin window.  The it was just a matter of sliding the skin fore and aft a bit until the front lower corner matched the front right corner of the bottom skin.  With the rear side skin clecoed together, I know the distances are correct (and I confirmed this as well).

I drilled the side skin to the lower longeron along several places.  As mentioned before, the fuselage has a gentle curve towards to the tail on all four corners.  By matching the side skin taper to the longeron and securing it as I went, the fit up was relatively easy to accomplish.  I still need to remove each of the diagonals and uprights on the side skin for priming, I just clecoed them in place for now give the side skin some rigidity for this task:

Here is the left side with the rear side skin temporarily clamped in place.  I also clecoed on the  the top coner longeron to further stiffen up the side skin for back drilling the rear tail frames:

Front and rear tail frames fit up and drilled to A3, eventually these wil be brought up to A5:

A bit hard to see among all the clecoes, but I added the rear frame diagonal as well, these too will be brought up to A5.  I've got a clamp holding the ear corner of the skin to the lower longeron and will drill them later once the left side fuselage skin is in place and I confirm everything is square.

Very pleased so far.  All the work to get the fuselage skins laid out, cut and replicated side to side is working very well.  I'm also pleased that all the fore-thought on order of operations (what to drill now, what to wait for later) is paying off now in the assembly stage.

Thanks for following along, more to come soon!