What's the secret for joining fuse sections?

[snoopyflys]

Seasons Greetings all,

What's the secret to joining the center and tail cone sections? I am having a time getting the tail cone and center fuse sections to match up, especially the side skins. I have a sawhorses placed under the F-704, just aft of the F-706 and just forward of the F-712 bulkheads. Each sawhorse is same height. I have the center section bottom skin clecoed to the tail cone and the baggage ribs clecoed to the F-706. When I try to cleco the side skins to the tail cone, they don't line up. There is about 1/8 to a 1/4 inch of side skin extending beyond the longerons where the sections come together. I have tried to raise and lower the tail cone as instructed in the builder manual / guide, but to no avail. I have even tried to raise and lower the center section thinking it may be too tall. Now I am at a loss as to what to do to get this seemingly uncomplicated task completed.

Is there a trick/technique for making these two sections come together? Any hints and/or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[mbetti]

I and others have had the same issue, i just did mine a couple weeks ago and the side skins at this connection were off probably an inch. I just took a good pin punch and sharpened it up. Working at the double row of holes, i pulled the skin away about 2", slid the pin punch in there sideways to connect the holes, and pryed it right together. The fuselage is light enough it will go where it needs to. At one point i didn't even have the rear horse in place. It looked hopeless at first, but this worked. Today i just put mine back together for riveting. I put maybe 6 clecos scattered around the side skin, then pryed it in.

Mike

[rzbill]

Dan,
I can only be of partial help since this task was a long time ago for me.

If the order of cleco's does not work, reverse it. My dim memory says the order mattered but I can't be more specific. I do remember it took some pushing and shoving to get it lined up.

Heres a link to my log entry of the day. Maybe it will assist.

http://websites.expercraft.com/rzbil...ry&log_id=9592

[snoopyflys]

Have the fortune of a local fellow builder see your post and offer to come by to help. What I have been fighting for over the last couple of weeks off and on, was resolved in less than an hour. Instead of clecoing the side skin to the F-704 and F-705 then the F-706, we did it in reverse order and also found there was a slight sag at the F-705 bulkhead. Once we had the sag shored up, the skin went right on. And found the saw horses were not as level as they seemed to be. It's all in the jigging.

Thanks Kevin for your help and experience with resolving this issue.

And thanks to Mike and Bill for offering their solutions as well.

On to the next hurdle.