Any input on where you started on your 7 q/b fuselage. Ifind myself looking at the plans and spending time looking at things already doneby Vans. I see plenty to do but am leery about doing something that will cause me problems down the road. With my sprint car I dont get a lot of time on the plane and dont want to do things twice Thank you in advance for any help. Or a nice set of q/b specific plans would help. Perhaps someone could design some and sell them and make some coin.
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- Thread starter tcrv7
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RickWoodall
Well Known Member
I have a qb 9a. It amazes me that they cant ammend the instructions a little to assist. SO many hours wasted going over things, as you dont want to miss anything. I scanned so many builders logs...nobody goes in the same order.
I just started at the firewall and worked back. What you end up with is a pile of finished parts built, assembled and primed but sitting across the room. While you figure out everything. DONT rivet anything like floor boards or baggage boards down till you are sure...they aint moving. Also, when you tackle the big job of the main gear mounts, put the grommets in first and think about fuel lines/brake lines...tackled that early on and now the stupid grommets dont fit in the spar and i didnt do my lines first so I think i have to take it all apart AGAIN, bend the line and put it all back together.
Everything gets built, and when you are just about ready to rivet or bolt in place..STOP...go put in in the corner..you dont want it final mounted for 6 months. Go to next job.
I propose some retired builder make a dvd and binder with QB instructions and pics and SELL IT HERE. It would allow us busy folks to plug away, not miss stuff and stop the stupid time wasting things that we paid the phillipinies (sp?) to do a good job on for us. Good luck
I just started at the firewall and worked back. What you end up with is a pile of finished parts built, assembled and primed but sitting across the room. While you figure out everything. DONT rivet anything like floor boards or baggage boards down till you are sure...they aint moving. Also, when you tackle the big job of the main gear mounts, put the grommets in first and think about fuel lines/brake lines...tackled that early on and now the stupid grommets dont fit in the spar and i didnt do my lines first so I think i have to take it all apart AGAIN, bend the line and put it all back together.
Everything gets built, and when you are just about ready to rivet or bolt in place..STOP...go put in in the corner..you dont want it final mounted for 6 months. Go to next job.
I propose some retired builder make a dvd and binder with QB instructions and pics and SELL IT HERE. It would allow us busy folks to plug away, not miss stuff and stop the stupid time wasting things that we paid the phillipinies (sp?) to do a good job on for us. Good luck
There isn't one correct sequence
There isn't one correct sequence, whether you're QB or SB. Either way, you need to study the plans and manual (but mostly the plans) until you understand how things come together and what the dependencies are. There are a lot of chicken and egg problems, such as the gear mounts and plumbing, so you just don't want to start using your hands until you've sorted it out in your head. That's true for both QB and SB.
Now for QB vs. SB. Something I did when I first received my QB that I think helped a lot is to go through the fuselage slow build manual step by step. At each step inspect the work carefully, and write down whether it's done or not, and if you found any issues that need to be fixed. I spent over a month doing this, not counting time spent fixing the issues I found. Pretty tedious. But when I was done I had high confidence in the quality of construction (and I had a list of QB factory screw ups that I'll need to fix), I was as familiar with the fuselage as a slow builder, I knew what still needed to be done, and was ready to continue the work. Going QB definitely saves a lot of construction time, but I honestly think you'd be short-changing yourself if you shortcut the process of understanding it to a slow-build level.
I also second Rick's advice. I've taken the same approach, and it's worked well. Do everything you can building structures and fitting them to the fuselage, but stop short of permanently mounting anything to the fuselage until you absolutely have to. That helps with the chicken and egg problems, and also keeps the fuse uncluttered and easy to work in. Yes, it takes discipline to put that canopy frame or landing gear mount back on the shelf. You don't get quite the same satisfaction of watching your fuselage "grow". But just think about how much fun it'll be later, installing everything during final assembly!
There isn't one correct sequence, whether you're QB or SB. Either way, you need to study the plans and manual (but mostly the plans) until you understand how things come together and what the dependencies are. There are a lot of chicken and egg problems, such as the gear mounts and plumbing, so you just don't want to start using your hands until you've sorted it out in your head. That's true for both QB and SB.
Now for QB vs. SB. Something I did when I first received my QB that I think helped a lot is to go through the fuselage slow build manual step by step. At each step inspect the work carefully, and write down whether it's done or not, and if you found any issues that need to be fixed. I spent over a month doing this, not counting time spent fixing the issues I found. Pretty tedious. But when I was done I had high confidence in the quality of construction (and I had a list of QB factory screw ups that I'll need to fix), I was as familiar with the fuselage as a slow builder, I knew what still needed to be done, and was ready to continue the work. Going QB definitely saves a lot of construction time, but I honestly think you'd be short-changing yourself if you shortcut the process of understanding it to a slow-build level.
I also second Rick's advice. I've taken the same approach, and it's worked well. Do everything you can building structures and fitting them to the fuselage, but stop short of permanently mounting anything to the fuselage until you absolutely have to. That helps with the chicken and egg problems, and also keeps the fuse uncluttered and easy to work in. Yes, it takes discipline to put that canopy frame or landing gear mount back on the shelf. You don't get quite the same satisfaction of watching your fuselage "grow". But just think about how much fun it'll be later, installing everything during final assembly!
