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I'm about to start joining the forward and aft fuselage, wondering if there are
any tips or "gotchas" I need to know? I read Jeff Schultz' site and was
planning to do things in a very similar way.

I don't remember anything being unusually tricky or challenging with this job. From what I recall, I cleco'd each side skin in place then used the bottom floor skin as a template to set the proper angles and location of the side skins. (I think I used painters tape to hold the skin in place for a while). Afterwards I drilled the two forward angle pieces, one across the upper forward longerons and one across the lowers to lock everything in place. Then it went on to fitting the lower firewall piece (be careful it's sharp!) and finish drilling the floor. Do your plans have a hint section on proper order?

I don't remember this taking much time but I really enjoyed it, just because when you're done it really looks like an airplane! :D

Just did this. Only "gotcha" is to make sure the aft wing attach angle, AND all of the gussets that attach to it are not riveted to your fuselage sides, otherwise assembly of the spar box will be impossible. Everything lined up very nicely, didn't have to worry too much about things becoming out of square. I found that fitting the top, forward most cross member and upper firewall to be a pain in the butt.. not difficult just took many iterations to make the fit right. I would also size up your engine mount before pilot drilling the firewall, mine was way over the specified .060" shim gap that the plans state (mine was more like 1/4 ish total gap) so i brought the 32" dimension in slightly to reduce the amount of shim that i will need.

I decided last night to use the "upside down" method. I got the fuse flipped, the sides on and the floor placed, but not drilled. One "oops" I had was that I had already drilled the aft floor skin to the forward-most lower crosstie; I should have waited and drilled all the skins and that crosstie together. Ah well, I guess I'll have to do some careful hole alignment and drilling on that section.

I had to call Kip last night to find out about some skin alignments. It doesn't seem too hard, but any time I'm drilling longerons that are already riveted up to other parts I start to sweat, since getting it wrong can be pretty costly in time and money. :?

Got the floor drilled on last night, I think it came out quite well. Will work on the crossties and firewall tonight!

I did it the right side up method, liked it for access into the cockpit area for the next steps before everything is rivited.. but you do have to lay on your back to get the floor in position.

142YX wrote:I did it the right side up method, liked it for access into the cockpit area for the next steps before everything is rivited.. but you do have to lay on your back to get the floor in position.

Now that my floor is in place I might flip it back around. I have to look at what my next steps are to decide.