December 4, 2017

PLEASE READ:  I decided to check the squaring of the fuselage down the entire length and discovered that the it was square at the front and rear, but that the center of the fuselage was not accurately square in the middle of the fuselage.  I flipped the fuselage frame to check both the top and bottom for squaring and was very disappointed to realize that the fuselage squaring was off by as much as a 1/2  inch.

Hind sight 20/20, I should have measured and secured the fuselage at every 12 inch mark to guarantee that it was consistently square along the entire length of the body (which was eventually accomplished).

I deconstructed the fuselage bottom cross members until I was back to only the l/h and r/h sides.

Reconstructing the fuselage in this third dimension was done to be sure all was square, the .090 gussets with 3/16" rivets were drilled out. The .032 gussets with 1/8" rivets were drilled out. I was able to use new 3/16" rivets in the .090 gussets. I cut and coped all new tubes. The 1/8" rivets in the .032 gussets were drilled and rebuilt with oversized 5/32" rivets along with all new tubing.

Constructing this fuselage with all tubes and keeping everything square was quite the challenge. New builders keep a close eye on this phase of the construction. As many other DVII builders have said in various blogs, "just looking at the assembly of tubes seems to make them go out of square". I agree 100%

Very disappointing, yet good lesson to learn early in this build.