Fuselage cleanup

Today was all about cleaning up the fuselage.  Since I cut F22 to the original specs, and the fuselage bottom foam changed in thickness from the original 1.6″ to the currently supplied 1.75″, I have an overhang of 0.15″ (1/8″+) of foam dropping below the edge of the bottom of F22 (oops!).  I’ll deal with that later when I build the nose.  For now, I removed and cleaned up the overhanging glass from when I skinned the fuselage.

Sanding fuselageSanding fuselageI then proceeded to give the external fuselage a light sanding to knock down whatever excess epoxy was left from the fuselage skinning.  The pictures make it look like the glass completely changes color, but most of the color change is from the fiberglass dust.

I also sanded down the landing brake areas including the leftover bondo from the “speed brake flap” construction and the interior fuselage side of the assembly.

Sanding fuselageSanding fuselageSanding fuselageI Dremeled away dead glass overlapping onto the firewall and knife cut & sanded in the landing gear and hellhole area.  I also removed, via Dremel, dead glass from the left lower rear seat area where it overlapped just aft of the fuselage bottom (on the hellhole side).  I then sanded the aft side of the rear seat.  I did a bit of Dremel-work in the area to knock out any dead glass as well.

Sanding fuselageSanding fuselageSanding fuselageOf course I didn’t sand any of the sidewall areas that would eventually get cut out for strake access.

Sanding fuselage

 

 

 

 

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