Alistair, my tech adviser, arrived and gave the inside of the fuselage a once over. Actually he gave it more than a once over and declared my work so far as being impressive. I now have the go ahead to close up the fuselage. Basking with Carol on an isolated beach on an island somewhere in the South Pacific. With the assistance of Carol I took the top off the aircraft for the last time.
Today is a big day - the two halves of the fuselage are to be permanently mated.
I scuff sanded all of the joint areas on both the top and bottom halves of the aircraft. This sanding included the the area inside the top of the fuselage where the bulkhead would mate and where the pitch tube support bracket would be fitted. Once the sanding was complete I degreased all of the mating areas with acetone. We made up several batches of flox thickened redux and applied this to all of the mating surfaces on the lower fuselage moulding. We then positioned the top onto the lower fuselage moulding, being careful to ensure that we didn't spread the redux that we had carefully applied.