Over a period of time I will be presenting the build log of this aircraft from the kit form. In this example I will generally build stock with little changes from the kit, however may build it out of sequence from the manual that is currently published.
The design is a nice laser cut kit and since I am a typical scratch builder, this will be a big departure in what I am used to. In this case all the parts are cut. In scratch building, one either builds a kit from plans and then builds the kit or in my case I build the needed parts one at a time as I go. For a kit like this laser cut is on the menu. It may be one of the first laser cut kits that I will build now.
The design is tried and true, established by the SIG company over many years. Initially the kits from SIG were not laser cut, one had to work from the plans and do some parts fabrications as was needed by the kit instructions. In recent times the SIG kits began to be offered as laser cut and this made for very exact parts offered in each kit. Fit and placement in the design were all worked out. This makes for some very good building where the sections of the aircraft are very straight.
I like to build fuselages first, they entertain me more. Here in this image are the fuselage sides with the inside doublers added. The sides are 1/8th in sheet and the doublers are also 1/8th inch sheet. This makes the fuselage sides 1/4 inch thick in the sections that matter. Interesting to note is that the doublers are cut with lightening holes to remove material that would have been extra weight.
Also in the initial stages of the fuselage is the front F1 fuselage firewall and engine mount beam mounts. These have to be marked from the plan and then placed for trial fit before attaching the mounts to the firewall.
