Maranda 14-H SN:1026 Sawdust – October 21, 2011
Last night I glued the last piece to the fuselage. This morning I pulled the staples and sanded the last areas that needed sanding. So, I thought I would take a few closeup pictures of things and post them here.
This is the last piece. That wedge shaped chunk of oak on the top of the fuselage. Actually the fuselage is upside down, so it is really on the bottom of the fuselage, but it just doesn’t look like it.
The tailwheel leaf spring will attach to the plane sort of like this. I still need to drill a few holes and figure out exactly what bolts I will need to order to hold things together. Chris (the airplane designer) has some ideas in the plans, but my particular plane may be off just a bit due to slight differences in materials and measuring. The hole in the spring is probably not quite the same size as the plans call for. The spring is for an Aeronca 7AC or 7EC. My first solo was in a 7EC, but that was a long time ago.
Here is the side as it now sits. The side and bottom stringers are in place and seem to fit quite nicely. I decided to anchor the forward end of the side stringers at the bottom of the outside plywood skin that forms the side window frame. The aft end of the stringer ends half way up the plywood side at the tail. This worked out pretty well.
This is a closup view of the area of the cabin bottom that Jeremiah sealed last Saturday. We need to add another coat of sealer before we install the landing gear brackets.
The front landing gear bracket is positioned just forward of the front bulkhead. The fuselage nose side plywood bends at just that point. Therefore, a piece of something needs to be positioned and shaped to give support to the bracket. I found that a piece of 3mm plywood was just right for this.
Now we can concentrate on sealing the fuselage. We need to finish the first coat with the fuselage in this position, then turn it right side up and apply a couple of coats that way. Then it gets turned upside down again for the second bottom coat and the installation of the landing gear brackets.
