Tim and Tony, I'm just a few months ahead of you two. I added the extra 14" bay behind the rear spar and 1" total to the front two bays. I'll add 1" of width to the firewall. The boat will be widened to 42" (outside edge of longerons) at the shoulders which will necessitate adding some width to all dimensions forward and aft of that point. I'm also considering using width dimensions proposed by Gunnar Olson here: http:/go-design.no/images2.html (scroll to bottom of the page) which would mean the longerons would run in a straight line from the "K" station back to the tail instead of from the "I" station. Not sure of that yet and would appreciate any input. This would obviously diffuse stress from around that tricky area just aft of the rear spar while bending the boat. His computer drawings sure make it look good. Sean Duggan, who started about a month before I did, had to make the frustrating decision to start all over again recently because of cracked longerons at that point and it's spooked me a little.
I've made all my spars to the 5048-45 dimensions and am scarfing plywood to cover them. I eliminated the foam-and-glass extensions from the tips of the spars by extending the wood portion of the spars. At first I was concerned that doing this might make the spar caps too thin to work with at the tips, but it turned out to be a non-issue. The final product is very solid. If you go with the 5048-45 airfoil, where all the outboard spar verticals have to be different lengths, I found it helpful to do a full-scale drawing on my work table of the outboard spars, fore and aft, so I could get the exact angle of incline for both, and exact measurements for the length of all the verticals. The drawings also served as very useful templates while gluing the verticals and planing the caps down to size. An extremely helpful tip I got from Jodel and Falconar builders' websites was to use PVC clamps for the gussets and some of the diagonals on my fuselage trusses. Cut a 4" PVC pipe into narrow rings on your miter saw and then slice the ring at one point. This gives you a lot of very CHEAP, versatile clamps. Thicker rings make clamps with more pressure and rigidity, while thinner rings make clamps with less force and more flexibility. They've worked great for me so far and I hope to use as many of them as I can while completing the boat. Best wishes, Seth Jersild jersi...@gmail.com
