Chapter 18 - Step 7

This step involves installing the upper firewall.

Upper Firewall Installed August 20, 2006. The plans make this seem so simple. Bondo a couple of boards in place to hold the upper firewall inline with the lower firewall. But it's not that simple at all. The lower firewall has all kinds of tapes added to it by this time. You can't rest a board along the lower firewall without it hitting one or more of the tapes. What I ended up doing was putting some 1/4" plywood scraps against the nice clean aft face of the spar. I then held two straight edges (the two metal angles in the photo) againt them. Then I made sure the fusealge and spar were level. I then ensured the two straight edges were straight up and down. Now I could simply hold the upper firewall against the two straight edges.

Upper Firewall Installed August 20, 2006. A shot from the front. The firewall goes into place very easily once you get the straight edges in place properly.