Tweet
I am making really good progress on my kit, and hope to fly by early summer. Unfortunately do to my inexperience building planes, I was very inefficient in the build process. I resurrected this thread to pass along some things along.
I think I would do the wings and tail first, finish them, and get them out of the way. If you have the space I would work on a bunch of things simultaneously. That way you are never waiting for parts or material. But I would rather have wings sitting around for a while, than avionics (getting obsolete) and engine (getting rusty). You might want to mount the wings to the fuselage once for the flap tubes, fuel lines, and if an older kit, drilling the wings. New kits have the wings drilled. Since everything is jib built at the factory, one improvement for the kit would be to drill the flap arms on a jig at the factory. Plans built would have to be with the wings mounted.
When it comes to the fuselage, I would get the gear mounted and fitted, and then remove it. Put it on a rotisserie. Second, if you want some of the fuselage tubing painted, do it right after putting the fuselage on the rotisserie. I painted the cockpit tubing the same as the external part of the aircraft, but had to do a lot of disassembly to do it. It would have been easier and less of a mess in the beginning.
The fuselage would come off of the rotisserie, covered, painted, all systems installed, instruments and most if not all avionics installed. Put the gear back on, then mount the engine. I probably spent 2 or 3 times the man-hours on the fuselage that I should have.
One thing I also did the last 6 months is mount the engine on the dynafocal mount, and then mount it to a big engine stand with a plywood copy of the firewall. Almost all of the electrical, fuel, oil, half the baffling work, throttle cable, prop cable (not yet for me) will be done, and transferred to the real firewall, which I already started to do. I only left a few wires and hoses with 1 end unterminated for the final install. I did all this with then engine a few feet from the fuselage so I could measure things to make sure they fit and didn't interfere with structure. Had I not done this, I would have spent 3-6 months on the FWF alone, most of which would be waiting for parts.
Just my opinion.
I think I would do the wings and tail first, finish them, and get them out of the way. If you have the space I would work on a bunch of things simultaneously. That way you are never waiting for parts or material. But I would rather have wings sitting around for a while, than avionics (getting obsolete) and engine (getting rusty). You might want to mount the wings to the fuselage once for the flap tubes, fuel lines, and if an older kit, drilling the wings. New kits have the wings drilled. Since everything is jib built at the factory, one improvement for the kit would be to drill the flap arms on a jig at the factory. Plans built would have to be with the wings mounted.
When it comes to the fuselage, I would get the gear mounted and fitted, and then remove it. Put it on a rotisserie. Second, if you want some of the fuselage tubing painted, do it right after putting the fuselage on the rotisserie. I painted the cockpit tubing the same as the external part of the aircraft, but had to do a lot of disassembly to do it. It would have been easier and less of a mess in the beginning.
The fuselage would come off of the rotisserie, covered, painted, all systems installed, instruments and most if not all avionics installed. Put the gear back on, then mount the engine. I probably spent 2 or 3 times the man-hours on the fuselage that I should have.
One thing I also did the last 6 months is mount the engine on the dynafocal mount, and then mount it to a big engine stand with a plywood copy of the firewall. Almost all of the electrical, fuel, oil, half the baffling work, throttle cable, prop cable (not yet for me) will be done, and transferred to the real firewall, which I already started to do. I only left a few wires and hoses with 1 end unterminated for the final install. I did all this with then engine a few feet from the fuselage so I could measure things to make sure they fit and didn't interfere with structure. Had I not done this, I would have spent 3-6 months on the FWF alone, most of which would be waiting for parts.
Just my opinion.
Comment