Summary
This section details the construction of the bulkheads that form the fuselage structure. The bulkheads are made from foam and covered with a fiberglass layup for strength and stiffness.
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Last Updated: 20 APR 2008
| 28 JAN 06 (Saturday) | I finished cutting out the pieces for the F019 bulkhead. Then I epoxied the doubler together to make a single piece. I still need to round the bottom corners of the F019 bulkhead. I created a sanding block to put a beveled edge on the F019 doubler. I'll glue some 100 grit sandpaper to it tomorrow and begin sanding away until I get the perfect bevel. |
| 29 JAN 06 (Sunday) | Dirk an F1 Rocket Builder came over for a visit. We glued the pieces together using the “hinge” method. This involved duct tape on one side and opening up the pieces, spreading epoxy and closing them back up, scraping off the excess and clamping together while the epoxy cured. In addition I rounded the bottom corners of F019 to a nice 3.60” radius curve. After that I sanded a bevel on the F019 doubler using the sanding block I built the previous day. This produced a nice even bevel which will allow the BID and UNI to lay on easily. F019 is ready for a layup. |
| 02 FEB 06 (Thursday) | Between work and family commitments, this is the first day I've had to work this week. Tonight I added flanges to my vertical cutting board. The flanges will allow me to clamp a board across the cloth as I cut to keep it from distorting under its own weight. At least thats the plan. Tomorrow I plan to calibrate my pump, cut my glass for the front side of F019 and use some of the scraps to make a sample layup on a piece of the foam I have left from the F019 bulkhead cutting. This will give me some experience with micro and glassing that I want to try before doing F019. |
| 03 FEB 06 (Friday) | I primed and calibrated the epoxy pump tonight. It is ready for the first layup. |
| 04 FEB 06 (Saturday) | Glassed the first layup of the project. It was the aft face of F019. It took about 1 hour to complete the layup, finishing at 2:30PM. After the layup was complete, I peel plied the bulkhead. I waited until 10PM that night to try knife trimming but it was not ready yet. |
| 05 FEB 06 (Sunday) | I finished knife trimming the bulkhead and it looks good. There are some dry spots near the edges but after checking with Steve, it looks like that won't be an issue. I began cutting pieces for F030 in the evening. I started with the center lower part which will form the aft end of the nose gear bay. |
| 06 FEB 06 (Monday)? | I created a template from fiberboard that matched the curvature of the top of FS030. With this template I cut two pieces from the Last-A-Foam and sanded them to match the template. I'll join them together at a later date. |
| 08 FEB 06 (Wednesday) | I finished cutting the parts that will assemble into bulkhead FS030. Here they are in an exploded view for arrangement. Tomorrow I hope to be able to glue the pieces together to form a solid bulkhead. |
| 09 FEB 06 (Thursday) | I didn't work very long tonight. I only glued one seam. I glued the curved upper section to the main section. |
| 10 FEB 06 (Friday) | Tonight before church I glued the two outer sections to the main section. Thats all I had time for tonight. Tomorrow I hope to join the center section to the main section and glass both this and the front side of FS019. |
| 11 FEB 06 (Saturday) | I finished gluing FS030 together by joining the center piece to the main section. Saturday night I began the layup for the front of FS019. I thought it would only take about an hour but I spent 2 ½ hours. I tried using the pattern method with aluminum foil for the 9 layer layup of the reinforcement on each side the the bulkhead. On the left side it didn't wet out fully around the edges and I had trouble cutting 9 layers of cloth. Therefore I layed up he right side one layer at a time and peeled the left side off and reinstalled each layer independently, ensuring a good wet layup. This caused bubbles which \ I had to work out. I thought several times that I came close to ruining the bulkhead, but in the end I think it will be salvageable. |
| 13 FEB 06 (Monday) | Not much work today. I cut/trimmed one side if the FS019 bulkhead. I used a coping saw to rough cut and my B&D Mouse sander with 60 grit sandpaper to sand to final contour. |
| 14 FEB 06 (Tuesday) | I continued to trim the layup with the coping saw and have three sides all done. I need to finish one side and then the tunnel cutout. |
| 15 FEB 06 (Wednesday) | More rough cutting. Only about 30 minutes available tonight. |
| 17 FEB 06 (Friday) | I finished trimming the sides with the coping saw. All sides and the tunnel are rough cut to shape. |
| 18 FEB 06 (Saturday) | My Shop-Vac motor burned up today. It lasted 12 years under some pretty rough conditions. I got a new Shop-Vac, a bit smaller (8 gal vs 16 gal) and it works fine. Not quite as much suction but it does fine for what I need. I started sanding the final edge shapes tonight. It's slow going. I could go faster but not without risking cutting into the original shape. I am paying particular attention to ensure the part has square sides. |
| 19 FEB 06 (Monday) | I have almost finished sanding the sides to shape. After checking the external dimensions everything looks good still. I need to put a true edge on the top and ensure it is square with the sides. I have the bottom edge of one side and the large radius to finish sand. Its down to about 1/32 of an inch left to go. |
| 23 FEB 06 (Thursday) | I finally finished bulkhead FS019. It is all sanded to shape, measured and trued for accuracy. It looks good. I am beginning to work on FS030 next. I need to decide a layup schedule before Saturday when I want to glass the first side. |
| 25 FEB 06 (Saturday) | I completed the forward face layup of FS030. I took about 2:20 to complete. It consisted of two plies of BID over the entire face except the lower side extensions and two plies of UNI vertically on each side and one strip vertically up the middle spanning the “tunnel” from top to bottom. I finished the layup about 1840 and set my alarm for 0000. When the alarm went off, I knife trimmed the bulkhead layup to shape. The epoxy was still tacky but the knife trim went excellent. The knife trim took about 45 minutes and saved me many hours of sanding. I am very pleased with the results of the trim. I did take care to lift a portion of the peel ply before trimming so I would have a lip to grip when I remove it later today/tomorrow. I could see how this could be very difficult to remove with the peel ply later trimmed close like the glass layer. Here is a picture after trimming. |
| 28 FEB 06 (Tuesday) | I started laying out FS046, the forward instrument panel bulkhead. I spent about an hour placing dimension lines on the drawing and began by cutting the center tunnel cover and the top horizontal panel flange. After cutting the first flange at the design width of 1” I decided to remake it at 1 1/2”. This seems a better size. I will need to go back and modify the drawing to reflect this change. I noticed FS030 has begun to bow on a horizontal axis. When the garage reach 80 degrees it had bowed about 3/4”-1” inch in the middle. I put the FS030 bulkhead on a flat bench and weighted it down securely and have left it for several days and temperature cycles. I look forward to seeing it after a final cure in about one week. |
| 01 MAR 06 (Wednesday) | Tonight I continued cutting on the side vertical stiles. I did not finish them and have the end notching to go. |
| 02 MAR 06 (Thursday) | After the monthly local EAA chapter meeting I continued to cut out pieces of foam to build up the FS046 bulkhead. |
| 04 MAR 06 (Saturday) | I finished cutting all of the pieces required to build up FS046. I laid out the FS046 lines on the freezer paper and started to assemble the pieces using 5 minute epoxy. By the end of the night I had glued the top and two diagonal pieces together. All told, about 2 hours today. I need to decide on how many panel hard points I am going to set up in this bulkhead to secure the panel. A friend suggested beveling the edges of the plywood inserts to make each hard point have some mechanical surface to resist pulling through. I will use his bandsaw to cut them on a 30 degree bevel. I also need to finalize the sizes of the inserts. |
| 05 MAR 06 (Sunday) | I finished gluing all of the pieces together that form FS046. In addition I went over to Dirk's house and used his bandsaw to cut 40, 1/4” plywood inserts that I will use to create hard points for mounting the removable panel. I also decided to create a horizontal stiffener to be added to the back of the lower pnel edge. This will give needed additional stiffness to the bulkhead. I also decided on a layup schedule for the FS046 bulkhead. After I decided on he layup schedule, I located some BID scraps and used them to create new pieces to be used in the layup. I will use three plies of UNI on all of the vertical and horizontal pieces with 3 plies of BID on the center tunnel cover. I will use on ply of BID on the inside of the horizontal stiffener and 3 plies of BID on the outside (bottom) of the stiffener. |
| 07 MAR 06 (Tuesday) | I cut 5 hard points in the lower horizontal panel. They will still need final shaping for a good close tolerance fit. |
| 11 MAR 06 (Saturday) | Cutting openings for hard points. |
| 12 MAR 06 (Sunday) | Continued cutting hard point openings |
| 14 MAR 06 (Tuesday) | Finished cutting all 14 hard point openings. Ready to glue them in and do a layup. |
| 16 MAR 06 (Thursday) | I went to flox the remaining hard points in tonight and the hardener side of the pump was plugged up. I tried several things to unplug it but it looks like I'm going to have to disassemble the pump body in order to fix it. |
| 18 MAR 06 (Saturday) | I finished floxing the hard points into the FS046. After floxing them in, I decided to perform a layup of the back side of FS046. I layed up 1, 2 and 3 layers before peel plying and stoping for the day. I will continue the layup at a later date. After about a 5 hour cure, I knife trimmed the edges but left the peel ply in place as it was not ready to peel yet. The epoxy had not cured enough. |
| 25 MAR 06 (Saturday) | I finished the layup on FS046 on the forward side. I added a stiffener at 90 degrees to the panel and layed in a single ply if BID in the corner for reinforcement. I noticed a tendency to curl as the layup cured and weighted everything down to ensure a flat bulkhead upon cure. |
| 13 APR 06 (Thursday) | After a long time away for vacation (Sun-N-Fun and bathroom remodeling) and work I got some time this evening to prepare FS046 for the final layup on the back side. I sanded an edge radius around the lower panel edge where the back layup will wrap around for additional stiffness. It was not much time but I should be ready for the final layup this weekend on Saturday I hope. |
| 16 APR 06 (Saturday) | Tonight I finished the layup on the aft face of FS046. I applied 3 plies of UNI to all sides and 3 plies if BID to the center console area. This layup took far longer than I anticipated. I wrapped two of the 3 plies under the horizontal lower edge of the panel to provide extra stiffness to this cross member. |
| 22 APR 06 (Saturday) | No building today but I did get to stop by Wicks in Highland IL while driving home from STL after spending several days out there working on the ERJ-170 simulator. I bought a Perma Grit file and Christopher got a toy helicopter that flies when you pull the string. I did try the file when I got home and it works great! |
| 24 APR 06 (Monday) | I added a single ply of BID to the unfinished sides of the horizontal cross member. |
| 25 APR 06 (Tuesday) | I trimmed the single ply BID layup and sanded the edges smooth. This finishes FS046. |
| MAY 06 (Sunday) | I cut BID glass pieces for FS 030 layup. After several days of deliberation, I've decided to re do FS030. The original FS030 has a significant bow to it in both the vertical and horizontal axes. I've also decided to skip FS030 and go onto FS093, the aft panel bulkhead. |
| JUN 06 (Sunday) | I finished the drawing for FS093 and dimensioned it. After the drawing was complete I began to fabricate the elements of the aft instrument panel bulkhead. Here is the progress so far. It lacks the top of the panel frame and shaping for the upper and longerons. |
| 15 JUN 06 (Thursday) | I corrected a problem with the left vertical piece tonight. Looking at the picture above, the left vertical piece has a notch in the wide part and the narrow top piece is the wrong one. Its 7.0 x 2.2 instead of 7.22 x 2.0. To fix this issue, I cut both top skinny pieces off, trimmed the wide base to 18.5 inches and reattached the skinny pieces. Now it looks symmetrical again. I'm happy. I know nobody would have seen it if I re cut and patched the left vertical piece but I would know. |
| 17 JUN 06 (Saturday) | I finished cutting and shaping the two vertical sides to FS093. They are trimmed to shape and ready for assembly. |
| 15 JUL 06 (Saturday) | I finished cutting all of the pieces required to assemble the aft panel bulkhead (FS093). |
| 17 JUL 06 (Monday) | I assembled all of the pieces required to complete FS093. Next I will place the nutplate inserts in the frame. |
| 18 JUL 06 (Tuesday) | I fitted 3 inserts in the FS093 frame. |
| 26 JUL 06 (Wednesday) | I completed a layup on the forward side of FS093 bulkhead. I did not install the horizontal brace at the base of the instrument panel. Instead I installed peel ply in anticipation of adding this brace after the aft face layup is complete. |
| 29 JUL 06 (Saturday) | I trimmed the edges of the FS093 bulkhead in preparation of the final layup on the aft face of this bulkhead. I also cut the fabric necessary to complete the layup on FS030. |
| 30 JUL 06 (Sunday) | I completed the layup on the remaining face of the FS030 bulkhead. Using 2 plies of BID reinforced with a single ply of UNI up the center and on each side vertically. Since this bulkhead had developed a significant bow, after the layup was complete I placed a sheet of hardboard over the bulkhead and weighed it down flat with some heavy weights. I hope it will straighten out after the cure is complete. |
| 31 JUL 06 (Monday) | I removed the peel ply from the FS030 layup and it is now flat as can be. Next I trimmed it to shape using my Fein tool and a sanding block. The garage temperature was almost 90F even at 10 PM in the evening. |
| 12 AUG 06 (Saturday) | I completed the drawings for the FS121 aft seat back bulkhead. I decided to make it almost 2 inches taller to accommodate the rear seat passenger better. After completing the drawing, I cut out the top curve template from some 1/4” hardboard. |
| 13 AUG 06 (Sunday) | Today I cut the FS121 bulkhead out of 1” thick Divinycell Foam 3 lb density. I used a sharp X-Acto knife and it cut like butter. For the upper and lower longeron cutouts, I printed a full size pattern out and cut using the pattern as a template instead of drawing the cutout on the foam as I did for the smaller bulkheads. After completing the outside shape I looked at the bulkhead and realized just how big it is going to be. It was a moment of excitement as the previous bulkheads have been rather small. This one is bigger than I am when seated, which is of course the idea. FS121 is the biggest bulkhead in the airframe. The firewall will be the next biggest one. |
| 14 AUG 06 (Monday) | I sized and cut to shape the access hole into the aft equipment bay. Boy, its not going to be very large. After completing the cutout, I cut all of the BID for the forward face layup. Two plies everywhere. I will add one ply of UNI vertically on the side rails and tie the upper and lower longerons together structurally. |
| 15 AUG 06 (Tuesday) | It so happens that this was Christopher's first day of school (K3) and I thought he would be tired out. Little did I know that his mid day nap must have been a “power” nap. He didn't lay down until 9:30pm. So I got started a little late. An hour and a half later and presto... Forward face of FS121 is done!. I elected to omit the UNI ply on the vertical sides since these areas will get taped anyway during the fuselage assembly. Tomorrow, I'll Fein Trim (pun intended) the edges and bevel the sides to shape in preparation for the aft face layup. |
| 16 AUG 06 (Wednesday) | I finished trimming the edges of the bulkhead. Next will be beveling the edges to get a glass to glass bond. |
| 20 AUG 06 (Sunday) | I beveled the aft edges in preparation for the aft face layup. These two shots show the longeron notches, bottom longeron on the right. After finishing the edges, I added a sing BID layer to the sides of the access hole to bring the sides of the hole in by 1” pon each side. This will accommodate the side wall panels, which like a dummy, I failed to consider when I sized the hole. |
| 21 AUG 06 (Monday) | Tonight I started to bevel the edges of the equipment access hole. You can see the sides which were brought in by 1” on each side. Now I can have a glass to glass bond on all sides of this bulkhead to give it added rigidity for torsional and side loading of the fuselage. |
| 30 AUG 06 (Tuesday) | This evening I finished the Aft Face Layup. I floxed the edges where I cut a bevel trench, micro'ed the surface and put one ply of BID at a 45 orientation. Midway through the process, I ran out of resin and had to pour my new resin into the pump. This is when I discovered that the resin had crystalized. I used a hair drier to heat the resin container while stirring until the crystals disappeared. Then I continued with the layup. Here is the result. |
| 02 SEP 06 (Saturday) | I finished the trimming of the aft face layup and sanded all edges smooth. After completing the finish sanding I started scuffing the areas that will receive the reinforcement layup. |
| 03 SEP 06 (Sunday) | I finished scuffing all of the areas that will receive the reinforcement layup. I used a “scotch brite” type 2” wheel in a drill to scuff the base layup surface. I wiped all areas with acetone when finished to complete the cleaning process. |
| 04 SEP 06 (Monday) | I applied two plies of UNI about 2-3” wide on the upper, lower and sides of the access hole. First I used a small paint brush to apply a thin coat of epoxy to the areas of the layup then I applied strips from the foil/plastic process. This allowed excellent control of size and placement of the reinforcement strips. |
| 06 SEP 06 (Wednesday) | I finish trimmed FS121 after the access hole reinforcement layup cured. Here is the finished bulkhead and a close-up of the reinforcement layup. I weighed the bulkhead in at 5 lbs, 4 oz. finished weight. |
| 09 SEP 06 (Saturday) | I started laying out and cutting the access holes in the forward cockpit seat back which will allow access to the rear rudder pedals. I've designed these to facilitate brake system maintenance. I plan to cut these holes and use the plugs covered with peel ply to ease the process of building flanges for the access panel covers to attach to. |
| 10 SEP 06 (Sunday) | I continued to cut out the access holes. Between yesterday and today there has not been a lot of time to allocate to the project but I've gotten a few minutes here and there. Tonight I'll spend a about 30 minutes editing the Airplane Flight Manual. |
| 01 OCT 06 (Sunday) | I have returned from Rough River 2006!. Three glorious days in canard heaven! I have decided after talking to Robert and Valerie Harris to lengthen my nose similar to the Viggenite in STL. I will also rake the vertical stabs back by 6” at the top. I have drawn the initial profile in TCAD and now I need to build a model in FS Design to look at the shape. |
| 04 OCT 06 (Tuesday) | Today I got in a little work on the Aft Seat Bulkhead of the forward cockpit. I cut the inner circle of an inspection hole in the bulkhead. In addition I finished shaping the MSFS long nose model. |
| NOVEMBER | I got to visit Oly Olsen the owner of the all metal Viggenite. |
| 08 JAN 07 (Monday) | After a long layoff for the holiday season, family and work commitments I'm back at the project. Tonight I worked on organizing the workshop in preparation for the next step of building the fuselage work table. |
| 13 JAN 07 (Saturday) | I cut two holes in the FS070 bulkhead sized for 1” thick hardwood inserts which will be used to mount the shoulder harnesses to. In getting ready to flox them in I discovered my epoxy pump was plugged up on the hardener side. So I spent the evening disassembling, cleaning and reassembling the hardener pump. I am looking forward to floxing in the two insert on the next session. |
| 14 APR 07 (Saturday) | I cut the last access hole in bulkhead FS070 and rounded the edges and prepared it for the layup on the forward face. |
| 21 APR 07 (Saturday) | I layed up two plies of BID on the forward face of bulkhead FS070. |
| 22 APR 07 (Sunday) | I trimmed the layup edges and its ready for layup on the aft face. |
| 29 APR 07 (Sunday) | I finished the layup on the forward face of the aft instrument panel bulkhead. I used three plies of UNI aligned with the rails and 2 plies of BID on the center console area with the ply orientation up/down, left/right instead of diagonal. I still need to install the horizontal brace at a 90 degree angle along the lower edge of the panel. |
| 30 APR 07 (Monday) | Tonight the layup was cured and I used the Fein tool to edge trim inside and outside edges, It still needs a final edge sanding to finish it. |
| 12 MAY 07 (Saturday) | Prepared FS093 (Aft Panel Bulkhead) for the last layup on the underside of the lower cross brace channel. |
| 23 NOV 07 (Friday) |
I started the fabrication of inspection covers for FS070 which will give access to the brake pedals for the aft cockpit. I began by cutting some foam blanks from 1/4" 6lb Last-A-Foam. I cut the blanks to a size which will fit nicely in the holes, beveled the edges, rounded the corners and cleaned them up ready for assembly. Next I layed up two plies of BID to form the front face of the inspection covers and let it cure overnight. |
| 23 NOV 07 (Friday) |
This morning after cure of the 2 ply layup I cut two blanks which I will epoxy to the foam blanks with a bit of micro. After I cut the blanks to size I placed them in the epoxy heat box to cure even further. |
| 18 DEC 07 (Tuesday) |
I finished the layup on the back of the inspection covers. It was cold (thermometer said 70°) in the shop even though I had the heater running. I didn't allow enough time to heat things up. This caused the layup to gel quickly and I almost didn't get it finished in time. I used peel ply to help spread the rapidly thickening epoxy and squeegee it out to the edges. After the peel ply I clamped it between some hardboard and built a heat tent to keep the cure temperature up around 85°. I intend to let it cure in the tent for three days so it will cure true and flat. |
| 20 DEC 07 (Thursday) | After some cure time I trimmed the edges square up with the front of the covers and reclamped them in the heat tent for additional cure time while I'm out of town for Christmas. |
| 26 DEC 07 |
Tonight after work while the family was out post Christmas shopping I finished trimming the inspection covers. After trimming to shape, I drilled the holes for the mounting screws through the flanges of the covers. |
| 22 MAR 08 |
Over the past few weeks I worked on installing the nut plates for the inspection covers. I ground out a small groove about 3/16" in size around the openings. Then I floxed in the nut plates to secure them to the bulkhead face. Here are the inspection covers after being screwed to the bulkhead. |
| 05 APR 08 |
This last week the weather warmed up and I started a layup to finished the inside of the inspection holes in preparation for the aft face layup. Here what is looks like when finished. |
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20 APR 08 |
Today I finished the layup on the aft face of this bulkhead. I used 2 plies of BID at 45 degrees and weighted it down to ensure a true flat face. Getting ready. First ply wetted out. Finished. |