Now the left side of the vertical fin was fitted the same way by making a
series of slits and wrapping it around the curve. It was then pulled
tight and glued, over lapping the right side fabric by 1":
With that part done, the remainder of the right side of the vertical fin fabric was cut to wrap around the tubes of the fin and tailpost and glued in place.
Here is the left side still open:
Note the newspaper placed in there to catch any glue drips. Of course
it was removed before closing off this side of the vertical fin and fuselage.
I took the above picture primarily as reminder to me of where everything
was located.
The left side of the vertical fin was then cut to fit and glued in place
with a 1 inch overlap of the right side:
The left side was pulled tight and glued to the bottom longeron from the
tail all the way to the aft side
door.
Careful attention was paid to keeping the seam aligned along the top, left stringer.
The fabric was then pulled tight and glued along the right side bottom longeron from the tail to the aft end of the cargo door opening.
With the fabric envelope stabilized from the tail forward and on the left
side, we could then start the process of trimming and gluing the fabric around
the cargo door.
In 2 foot sections, the fabric was pulled snug, trimmed and glued, trimmed 2 more feet, pulled snug, trimmed and glued, etc., until we reached the front door flanges.
Here it is trimmed and glued all the way to the forward end:
The area below the doors will receive a separate piece. The piece that
we just cut from the upper door flanges makes a nice fit for that bottom
area.
The final bit of business was to glue the front end of the fabric into the
windshield channel. To accomplish this, we smeared a bunch of glue
inside the channel, then used some popsicle sticks to press the fabric all
the way into the channel, smoothing it out.
The fabric wraps all the way inside the windshield channel and comes back
out on the bottom. After this dried, the fabric was cut off at 1" and
glued to the headliner fabric.
