More on Floorboards

It's been a while since I made the mock up of the floorboards but at last I made the effort to get some qualaity birch plywood for the final product. Using the mocked up floorboards with I marked out the outline of the floorboards onto the birch ply paying attention so that there were no blemishes in the birch.

There were a couple of differences between the mock up and the final boards (go to http://gbrih.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-interior-floorboards.html to see details of the mocked up floorboards) to incorporate improvements, mainly around the cut out for the brake pedels.

Cutting was done with a band saw, fly cutter and fret saw to get the required shapes; one useful tip here is to score the underside of the ply along the proposed cut with a knife, this prevents the underside from ripping when sawn giving a clean edge to the ply.

The boards were drilled to take the self tapping screws that will fix them to the fuselage (tabs on the fuselage will have tinnerman nuts fitted).

The boards were then sanded and given a brush coat of varnish. Once this had gone off the varnish was sanded lightly to de-nib it and thre more layers of varnish were sprayed on. For spraying the varnish was thinned down with MEK in the ration 1 part varnish to 4 parts MEK.

Finally the bulkhead under the seats was cut and fitted. This is screwed into the crossmember under the front of the seat sling and will drop into a slot formed by two quater round strips of wood glued to the rear part of the floorboards. the battery box, which I have yet to make, will be positioned in the middle of the floorforward of the bulkhead.

I have still got to get a couple of extra tabas welded to the fuselage frame to provide additional anchor points for the floorboards but this should be done within the next couople of weeks as I write.