Fuselage Bulkheads

[macrafic]

What have the rest of you done with the 706, 707 and 708 fuselage bulheads. The flimsy pieces of thin metal simply will not lie flat, no matter what I do. In fact, the direction that the pieces need to bend do not lend themselves to fluting. Also, they bend in wierd directions; a couple of pieces look like sine waves. Do you simply get them as best as you can, then let the riveting of the skins pull them into line?

I must say, these are the first pieces of the plane that I am not happy about out of the box. Everything else has been decent quality work, but these parts leave much to be desired.

 

[Captain_John]

Rich, they are what they are. I am guessing that they are as beefy as they need to be. Of course, I aren't a en-ga-near but, they seem to do the trick.

Anyways, I fluted mine as best as this wireman could and the skins magically pulled them into place.

My advice, just do your best. I am sure it will be fine.

Does this help?

CJ

 

[n615ks]

Fuse Bulkheads

Mine were the same way.....kind of looked as if they had been run over by a truck, and I even called Van's cause I just wanted to be certain that they would be OK. I was assured that the skins and baggage bulkheads would stiffen them up just fine, but that the flanges still needed to be fluted and angled as required, so I lightly clamped each half down the the bench toward the inside edge and fluted away until all was flat. After getting that under control, I clamped them a bit tighter and bent the flanges using a block as a gauge, with one side cut to the appropriate skin angle.
All rib flange angles seem to be fairly critical, as the skins will have a tendency to take on the rib flange angle, not vice-versa. Just depends on how flat you want the skins to lay.
I've just finished riveting the aft fuse and all is fine, except they are still a bit wavy above the main longeron. I don't like it, but I'm sure all will be fine(?)