This weekend I finally declared Chapter 7 completed. This was a long, messy one, and I’m glad it’s over. This chapter is the last one for a little while that requires really big layups (entire fuselage bottom, for example), which are a real challenge and a huge mess in my tiny shop. Can’t wait for chapter 8!

For this chapter I stuck entirely to the plans again.

The biggest change was that I sorta skipped building the rotisserie. My shop is small enough that there’s isn’t a whole lot of room at the ends of the plane, and I felt the rotisserie would take up too much space. So I flipped the place around on sawhorses when I needed to rotate it. If you do this, I found the biggest challenge was making sure the plane doesn’t warp if you rest it on its side. I found the best way to adjust if this sagging occurs is to move the saw horses until you find a good position. For me it was as close to the ends as possible. In hindsight, the rotisserie probably would’ve taken less time if I had the space.

I also deviated from the planes by using peel-ply on the entire exterior. My theory is that it gives the plane a better starting point for the finishing. I strongly recommend this. The exterior is already pretty darn smooth, and any bumps are such that I’ll be able to sand them off without damaging the glass. I doubt this would be true without the peel ply.

Several other builders have reported on difficulty creating the joggle for the landing gear cover. For this joggle, I created a simple jig. Once I was ready to glass, I cut a 1×5 wood block the exact length of the cut-out for the scoop in the landing gear bulkhead. I then covered it in wax paper. After doing the layup, I then stuffed this into the scoop cut-out. It was a snug fit, so it stayed there on its own during cure. This block squeezed the glass down into the joggle very effectively and created a very nice little lip.