Start of Fuselage Covering

An exciting time of every restoration is when the covering begins.  Before your eyes, the skeleton of an airplane starts to look like something that will fly.  And it happens quickly - in a matter of hours!

Rotisserie tail adapter

Ahhh, the beauty of a rotisserie!

The first thing I had to do was pull the OX-5 off in order to put the fuselage back on the rotisserie.  A rotisserie is worth every bit of time, cost and trouble to build.  It allows easy access to all parts which results in a much better covering job.  I tell my A&P students all the time - you can spend hundreds and thousands of hours making something look near perfect, but ruin it in a matter of minutes with poor finish work.

My friend, Mark, helped put this one together from parts he uses on car restorations.  You can rotate the fuselage around with one hand!

In order to have access for gluing fabric 
around the tail-post, I had to make an extension to move the rotisserie attachment out farther.

Bottom covering

Top covering

Aircraft fabric comes about 70" wide, which means the fuselage will have to be covered in several pieces.  In the case of the L-P, it will take 4; bottom, top and two sides.  I started with the bottom.  The large opening near the tail is an access for attaching controls.  It is covered with an aluminum panel.








Then the top.  I'm not sure why the folks at L-P left the opening as shown here.  Maybe to inspect the trim mechanism or aid in attaching controls.  The horizontal stabilizer will mostly cover this opening.

Next, I'll attach the two side panels.  This works out good, as the fabric can only be attached to structural members of the airframe.  Stringers are not structural, but the two upper and lower longerons are an ideal place to wrap fabric around for the proper 1" glue joint.

As Alice Cooper said - "Schools out for summer"  and I don't have to return until August 22nd.  We got a lot going on though - next week, Cindy and I are spending several days in the beautiful Northwoods of Wisconsin.  Then home for a week, but flying the Kelch Travel Air 12W up to EAA and maybe getting the Stearman C3B flying.  Then EAA - Phew!  I'll post again when I get more done.  If you are going to EAA, stop and see us in the Vintage area.  Cindy and I are once again doing the hand-propping demonstrations twice a day ( I think 10:30 and 1:00).