N247BR

FUSELAGE KIT COMPONENTS

The standard KIS Cruiser Fuselage is composed of several premolded parts, a couple of flat composite stock panelswhich are used for cutting out numerous parts, a1/4 inch plywood panel about 4 ft by 4 ft and lots of glass and epoxy.
The upper and lower portion of the cowling and the fuselage top are in the foreground. In the background you can see the flat pre- preg stock and the fuselage bottom.	This shows the fuselage top sitting on the bottom before all the peel ply and plastic were removed.
This shows the inside of the doors and the two parts of the rudder.	Additional view showing door componets and the Rudder.
Once all componets are unpacked and inventoried, I would recommend that all peel ply be removed and the majority of the parts be covered and stored for later use.  The peel ply could be left on but, the longer it is left on the more difficult it will be to remove.  On the other hand, if you don't cover the unused parts during storage they may collect a lot of dust which will need to be cleaned prior to use.  I figured it would be easier to clean than remove that peel ply after an extended period of time.

 

The above parts were premarked on the 1/4 inch prepreg panels.  These were cut out using a saber saw with a fine toothed metal saw blade.  I cut all of these out at one time.  This is not necessary but I found it was easier to set up and cut them all at the same time.  In retrospect it might be better to wait until the parts are needed.  The only reason for waiting would be if you decided to modify the parts for your installation.

Test fit of the top to the fuselage bottom after bottom was leveled and anchored.	This shows the spacious working area which I must share with my wife's car.
The next step if you are building the standard kit as opposed to the fast build, it to mount the fuselage tub on a jig.  The fuselage must be leveled from side to side and front to back.  This leveling process is very important and once complete the entire thing should be anchored into place with bondo.  I used the gear mount as sort of a pivot point and leveled it side to side first.  I then leveled front to back using the tail.  Once level, I placed the firewall jig and anchored into place with bondo.  This had the entire plane level.  All sawhorse feet are also bonded to the garage floor.