Couldn't take the fuselage to the airport today for the trial fitting, but I did make some more progress. Got the fuze situated on the build table and trial fit the main wing on top. I also clamped and soldered the tail back on. The tail was one part that hadn't been separated in the great fall. That responsibility fell to me. I had the wing on a couple of stools in the shop. It was behind me when I was working on my little lathe. I rolled back my desk chair and knocked the wing onto the concrete floor. The noise was horrendous and the tail was separated. Luckily, it didn't deform badly and I was able to refit it and solder it back together today. No harm, no foul. One of the struts was slightly out of position and I corrected that too.
I soldered this strut about a 1/4" to close to center and a little bit too far forward. The other struts lined up beautifully.
I modified my fixture to support the tail during the soldering operation. The tail has some 3/64" bras wire details that I need to replace. These will be easy compared to all the massive parts that needed to be reattached. Notice the model is actually supported by the fancy brass standoffs and lamp pipes. I drilled the base board so they would sink to the proper depth. I then leveled the model and level the main wing. Lines up well. I wanted to add more wood to support the outboard ends of the wings, but frankly, it wasn't needed. Even unsoldered, the diagonal struts were supporting the wing in the proper location. My build board was too narrow to move the supports out the extremis of the wing. The board is my college drawing board that I bolted to the top of an IKEA stool to make an additional work space. It's come in handy many times. It lets me work 360 degrees around the model.
With the acetylene air torch soldering has become much more predictable. It's no longer a worry. The joints are coming out relatively clean and well bonded. The repositioned strut now joints the other at the bottom end as it should.
I used some small C-clamps to lock the tail down tight, applied flux and was able to refuse the previous solder. I just had to add a little bit more to fill some more voids. There are a couple of spots that will need some filler before painting. Two are seen in this image. They're from the two pins that hold up the nacelle tapered end. I cleaned off the wing with baking soda and water to neutralize the acid flux and then went over it with some 240 grit abrasive on an oscillating multi-tool.
With a successful trial fit I'm quite confident that the entire plane will come together as it should and be quite strong. Once I got the soldering process lined out the project became must less onerous.
