Fuselage jig in action

Today, we put the new fuselage jig to good use, and assembled the fuselage for a Dixon Time Machine 40. The jig worked great. It was like having 6 extra pairs of hands. The fuselage had NO choice but to come out straight.

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We added diagonal braces (Warren Truss) which adds tremendous resistance to twisting. It's easy to do, doesn't add any significant weight, and is well worth the little extra effort required.

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Epoxy was used on the nose, but CA was used for everything else.

Cheers,

Warren:

Like your jig very much. Did you build it from scratch? Purchase it? If you built it, do you have a diagram, sketch, or plan w/dimensions available for the jig? Cost?

Warren,
Looking good! I agree with the cross pieces. I use angled bulkheads out of 1/16 , grain lengthwise, between the vertical formers (grain widthwise) and the fuse is amazingly stiff. Nice pics.....yeah, digital cameras rule!

Hi Warren. Well my jig is all ready to be put to use on my Road Runner. Then an Oriental. Just seeing the pictures on this board is all anyone needs to construct a fuselage jig like yours. Thanks again, and you and I know it works real well on profile fuselages, better than boxes of shot gun shells.

Personally I prefer boxes of 45ACP rounds turned on their sides for the fuse jig(!)
This jig looks similiar to the one Bill Werwage uses in his "How to be Confused By I-Beam Wings" video.

I feel green with envy. What material are you using for the base?

LAST EDITED ON Feb-01-02 AT 09:36 AM (CST)

Boy do I wish I had a fuselage on the bench so I could post a picture of my shotgun shell jig

I still do not understand the need other than it's cool...

LAST EDITED ON Feb-01-02 AT 11:06 AM (CST)

>fuselage jig like yours. Thanks
>again, and you and I
>know it works real well
>on profile fuselages, better than
>boxes of shot gun shells.
>

Ty;

Us country boys like our boxes of shotgun shells, thank you... .

On a more serious note, I am curious as to how you are using this jig with profiles. Normally when I glue the doublers, I use two flat surfaces w/wax paper and weight or pressure between. I don't see with this setup where you would get an even distribution of pressure along the doublers. I might be missing something, though.

I DO think that for wing and stab alignment on a profile, this device would do well.

Just out of curiosity, what are you using for a base board on your jig? I can't seem to find anything straight/true enough for 42 or so inches....

hey there Ty I agree that jig does look nice but do you think that his shop or a studio ?? how come the shop is so clean

The base looks like a Melamine covered chipboard shelf, usually quite flat. I'm guessing that the vertical bits are made as a strip and sawed square on a radial arm or table saw? Wish I had a jointer. What are the vertical bolts? Redi-rod/All-Thread or carriage bolts? I like it! Steve

LAST EDITED ON Feb-04-02 AT 02:25 PM (CST)

LAST EDITED ON Feb-02-02 AT 05:39 PM (CST)

LAST EDITED ON Feb-02-02 AT 03:51 PM (CST)

To answer your questions:

George- The jig is scratch built based on what I remember about the RCM jig and what my current requirement are. I have no sketch or plan, but could do one if there was enough interest.

I didn't keep track of my costs, but everything came from Home Depot, and I would estimate that it was around $25.

Bob K. - There was no intent nor need to use this type of jig on a profile fuselage. Just use your weights as you have been doing.

The base is a standard "shelf" material....particle board with a Melamine finish on all 6 sides.

Steve - The bolts are regular carriage bolts.

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What may not be obvious from previous photos, is that I put 1/16" high density foam on the clamp surface to protect our cherished 4-6 pound balsa from any damage.

Also what is not obvious, are runners fastened to the bottom of the jig. They offer three benefits: they help to prevent the base from warping, give clearance for the heads of the carriage bolts, and provide a lip around the edge of the unit for easy handling.

[photo not recovered: 3c5eed391c9fe178.jpg]

And as far as this being my 'shop' or 'studio', this IS my workshop, but I must confess, I keep it this clean, because the wife uses the area for some bypass surgery on weekends. She's very fussy about cleanliness....a woman thing, I guess. <g>

Please feel free to email me if you have specific questions on details. I'll be happy to help.

Cheers,

That is the old RCM jig .Mine was built in the 70's somehow I think that the drawings are still available in one of their publications. Do like the idea of foam strips to protect the wood sides of the fuse.

The fuselage in Warren's photographs is my currently under construction Time Machione 40. Warren was generous enough to offer me first use of it since he had completed the fuselage for his current building project (Southwick Skylark) several weeks before he built the jig. The jig made my fuselage assembly a piece of cake. It is like having two extra sets of hands. Everything is held rock steady while you line up and glue your fuselage components. My fuselage turned out dead straight and using the diagonal cross braces produced a fuselage that will never twist or come out of alignment. This is an excellent tool and I will never build another fuselage without using one. Now I just have to convince Warren and his jig to remain in Florida all year long; or that I can give it a good home while he spends the summer in a cooler clime.

Paul

Leonard, our host, has sketches for building this jig, and others, on his SSW site,I used them to build mine more than a year ago.I just tried to pull it up, site is down at the moment.

>
>Bob K. - There was
>no intent nor need to
>use this type of jig
>on a profile fuselage.
>Just use your weights as
>you have been doing.

Warren;

My apologies - my comment was directed towards Ty. I was curious as to how he used this jig on profiles. I couldn't figure it out and asked the question. The one thing I do know is that if you want to find out, you have to ask.

BTW - the jig looks great.

The remark about the profile fuselages was in jest relating to an earlier post about shot gun shells. The person making the comment about his using shot gun shells in boxes then posted a photo of his plane, a profile!! Thus my remark intended as humor. I made my jig from plywood that had a veener of birch on top and bottom. The bolts are carriage bolts, 5" long. I used hard pine, glued to 3/8 " square strips on both edges and ripped them on my table saw, for the braces. I do need to use the foam on one side, which I trued, but is still hard wood. The board for the base is 48" long by 18" wide. Big enough for anything I'll ever build. I got my "stuff" at Lowes and total cost was 27.34 US dollars.

One more thing, I didn't use any plans to make the jig. Just looking at the photos gave me enough info and knowing how big our fuselages are, I went from there. Main thing is to get a true piece of base wood. Also, I screwed two runners on the bottom at the outside edges. Used 1/2" square wood strips. This helps keep the base from warping and the carriage bolts don't have to be countersunk that deep. The blocks for lining up the sides are 4" X 3 1/2". Make it fit your needs. The hardest part is starting, next thing you know you have a jig. If I can build one in a day, anyone can.

CLiner wrote "Leonard, our host, has sketches for building this jig, and others, on his SSW site,I used them to build mine more than a year ago. I just tried to pull it up, site is down at the moment." It is not Leonard's site that is down, rather Howard Sullivan's R/C site that is down and has been for 3 days now. I will try to keep checking back, but I suspect it's history. Maybe somebody has saved the pictures of these jigs and could post them someplace and notify us, please? Steve

This link to the fuselage jig on Sullivan's site works OK for me.

http://webpages.charter.net/rcfu/ConstGuide/FJConstr.html

This is basically the old RCM jig that was the basis for my unit. I changed several items to suit the requirements of a common C/L stunter, my own personal preferences, and to accommodate available materials.

You can customize it to fit your own needs. The 6" spacing between stations is too far apart for our size ships. I used a 5" spacing, and added additional holes around the nose for increased clamping support to the critical crutch area.

Cheers,

re Ty M's comments about adding runners along each side which increases stiffness and also raises the base board up to minimize/eliminate the need to counterbore the underside of the base plate for the carriage bolt head clearance on the building table.
Great ideas, I will definitely add this change and third stiffener on the center line if I build another jig.
Thanks Ty.
CLiner

Say hey cliner. Do build another and put it up for sale on this board. I'll bet you get three or four customers. No profit, just labor of love and be famous.