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I have an exposed basement with this great empty room which I've been using as my workshop so far. I built both wings down there and then took em out the back door and around to the garage for storage when they were done.

Now that I'm building the fuselage it's getting big in a hurry! I'm trying to plan ahead and figure out how much I can do before I move my project out to the garage or even a hangar. I want to do as much as I can in the basement since it's climate controlled, organized, and all my parts and tools are already there.

My exits are a 34.5" wide door, and a ~35" wide window. The door will probably work better, although the window has a straighter shot down the stairs to the ground outside. I also have to get through the gate in the fence but that thing is wider than the door so it shouldn't be a factor.





Anyway, I am getting fairly close to done with the aft fuselage box, and I know I can get that thing out the door. It's 40" wide but only 22" tall so it'll fit sideways. The tail post is like 32" tall so that should fit through sideways too.

So my question is, can I keep the turtledeck just clecoed on while I do the rest of the fuselage, then remove it to get out the door, and rivet it at the very end in the garage?

Ideally what I'd like to do from here is temporarily fit the turtledeck and formers, and build the whole forward fuselage but leave it only temporarily installed to the aft fuselage. Then I can do the landing gear, canopy, most of the firewall forward stuff, fit the cowl, and wire the whole panel all in the basement. Once that's all done I could pull the gear and canopy back off, split the forward and aft fuselage sections, remove the turtledeck, and I think I could get it all out the door from there.

Then all I'd have left to do in the garage is put back on what I took off, rivet the turtledeck and foreward/aft fuselage interface, rig the wings, and it'll be just about done!

Will that work or am I overlooking something?

That's essentially what I did. Also after finishing up the aft fuse, taking it to the garage and then permanently attaching the turtle deck I started building the fore fuse in my basement. Then I took the fore fuse to the garage, squared/mated/riveted front and match drilled to the aft fuse and engine mount, then carried it back to the basement (my garage isn't super close - so I _really_ prefer working in the basement/shop).

Then back in my basement I did the seats, main ldg gear, gear fairings, leg fairings, electrical, avionics (as one big removable harness), engine (temp install only), select firewall penetrations, glareshield.

This weekend I'm moving the fore fuse back to the garage the last time, to permanently attach. Then mate wings, paint cockpit, permanently install avionics, control linkages, install engine, cowl, canopy.

I built my previous airplane the same way.

Sweet, I think this will work then. I guess now that I look at it, the turtledeck doesn't really interface with much else anyway.

Here's another question: can you fit the cowl without having an engine installed? I might try to do that in the basement as well even though I haven't bought an engine yet.

I am getting close to working the cowl. I would guess no. You have to line up the cowl and prop flange.

Bryan Cotton wrote:I am getting close to working the cowl. I would guess no. You have to line up the cowl and prop flange.

That's kind of what I was thinking. Is that just an area that you have to trim to fit, or does it affect the alignment of the whole thing? I'm building a B model so the cowl is theoretically supposed to be a little easier but who knows!

I'm in kind of a weird situation with my project and the military right now, where I have pretty much until the end of the year to work in this thing, then I'm deploying for six months, and then I may or may not be moving shortly after I get back. So I don't want to buy an engine until I know I'll have time to install it!

That's also why I haven't just knocked out that door and window and out a huge French door in. If I was going to live here permanently I'd just do that!

Bryan Cotton wrote:I am getting close to working the cowl. I would guess no. You have to line up the cowl and prop flange.

yeah - what Bryan said ;-)

You could build pretty much the entire fwd fuselage, minus the landing gear, while clecoed to the aft fuselage.

Here's a pic of my project in my basement around that stage:



In the above picture, if the turtledeck was clecoed (or simply removed) then I should have been able to fit the entirety through a door opening like you described. I don't believe the turtledeck interfaces with anything but an aft fairing, plus whatever antennas/wiring you do, so waiting to permanantly attach it may indeed be an option. The main thought process may be when to rivet the turtledeck formers to the lower aft fuselage formers, but off the top of my head I don't see an issue there.

Also notice in the pic above, I still had the fwd/aft fuselage clecoed together. I wouldn't recommend sitting in the seat pan with just clecoes holding the 2 together unless the fwd fuselage was properly supported on the floor. However there's no rush to rivet the fwd/aft fuselage together that I can think of. Access to the upper fuselage splice plates is restricted by the cross tie box on the aft fuselage, but I think you could bolt those up to the aft fuselage when you install the cross tie box and leave them unbolted to the fwd fuselage for later.

You should be able to do most if not all of your electrical system, but keep in mind that the instrument panel/glare shield will increase the height of the fwd fuselage and you could run into clearance issues through your doorway if the instrument panel/glareshield is permanently attached.

FYI, I left the fwd fuselage floor clecoed until after wing rigging, instrument panel, rudders and fuel tank were done.

RE: The cowl, yes you should have an engine installed. When fitting the cowl, it's actually a forward > back process when trimming it. You start with attaching it to the prop hub with a wooden template, then start trimming it around the fuselage. Without the prop hub there's nowhere to begin.