fuselage jig

question. . .

to what extent must one stabilize the fuselage jig? does it need to be bolted to the floor? what degree of stiffness is required?

Just build it as per the plan sheet and you will be just fine. Mine just sat on the garage floor for two years. There is no need to build in any extra stiffness or bolt it to the floor as it has all the rigidity you need.

Cheers

I personally like it attached to the floor. Since my garage floor isn't really level and flat, moving the jig could cause things to twist as the jig's feet find new positions.

I did avoid drilling holes in the floor by doing the following: After the jig is built, turn it over and screw a square foot of plywood to the bottom of each jig foot. Clean the floor real well and run a nice bead of liquid nails all over the bottom of the plywood. Flip it over, put something heavy on top of each leg and wait a day. It'll stay put real well, but can easily be pried off the floor when you're done.

Mark,

I just looked over your website and must say that's a fine looking airplane. I especially like the section on painting it. The contrast between the ugly unpainted and beautiful painted version is really impressive. Very inspiring!

Screw it down

I screwed mine to the floor because I wanted to be able to push on from the side and not have it slide all over the place. You could probably get away without doing it, but I think that the extra effort is worth it.

The liquid nails thing seems to work for some people, but I think that it is less intrusive to drill a small hole in the floor and use the blue concrete anchor screws. After I disassembled the jig, I just filled the holes with epoxy. The only hold back may be access to a hammer drill. I have a Craftsman from Sears for $60.

My floor isn't nearly flat either, so I wanted to make sure the jig didn't move from the spot that I had it leveled. Once I had it level, I cut 4 small pieces of 2x4 for each leg of the jig, and epoxied them to the floor, and each side of the legs. This worked great, but pulled up a bit of concrete when I knocked them loose. Epoxy might not have been the best choice of glue

Plain old chepo bondo works great for holding jigs in place on a concrete floor. Just put a big bob of it around each leg of your jig. I used this on my wing jig and it worked like a charm. When your ready to remove it just smack it with a hammer and it will shatter.

Liquid Nails works just fine. Even in ugly, cold, Upstate NY winters!