Back at the bulkhead work today with yet another bulkhead to work on. Today it is F-706. I started by gathering all the parts needed and then deburring the sharp edges. One thing that struck me about this bulkhead is that it is super thin. I’m not too worried as I know that it is reinforced with a blanking plate that closes the entire hole. This particular bulkhead is the one that forms the back of the luggage area. In a larger plane it would be the back of the rear passenger seats but mine will be a two seater so this will be the baggage area instead.
You may have noticed the football on in the background, well it turns out watching England play in the World Cup from my workshop is good luck. It’s the first time I’ve ever watched them and they’ve won a match! And won spectacularly too, 6-1, nice! Anyways, while the football was on I was still working making parts from angles for the bulkhead. Like this F-729C bracket which had to be made from angle stock and then bent in the vise to 88.5 degrees. Boy am I glad Van’s supplied a scale drawing here.
After making the various extra parts I assembled the bulkhead and then match drilled all the holes as usual.
It looks so cool. The rectangular hole at the bottom is for the elevator push rod (which makes the plane go up and down!). Once everything was match drilled I disassembled everything and deburred the drilled holes and scuffed all the parts ready for priming.
That’s it, all the parts are ready to be washed for priming. I’ll do that when I’ve done more bulkheads so as to make the most of a priming session.