I began construction of my fuselage by building the landing gear truss. The main reason for this is that some of the tubing I need to build the fuselage is backordered so I was looking for something to build. It is recommended (by Hale Wallace) that the landing gear truss be built as an assembly before installing it into the fuselage anyway. The following pictures describe how I went about constructing my landing gear truss.

First, I drew the dimensions out on a jig.

Next I predrilled the holes for the bungee supports and the lower longerons and added blocks to maintain alignment of the tubes.

Then I cut and fit all of the components of the truss and assembled them in the jig.

After tacking all of the pieces together except for the bungee supports (standing up in the picture to the left) I welded the assembly. Then to cut the notches for the bungee supports I mounted the jig onto my drill press (Shop Smith) and aligned the jig with the hole saw using the previously drilled holes in the jig

Then I put the assembly back into the jig and cut the notches for the bungee supports.

The final fit was very good and also nice and square.

I then welded the end caps on the bungee supports before attaching the supports to the truss assembly. The final step was to weld the bungee supports to the rest of the truss (out of the jig of course).

And the final product. I will leave it this way until I get my fuselage constructed up to the point where I will install this. That way I can get the exact measurements on where to cut it for the correct fit. If everything works out correctly the pre drilled holes for the longerons (in the jig) will line up with the longerons. I am thinking about going ahead and cutting the holes in the truss and then installing it as the first cross member in my fuselage. Then I will install the cross member at station 0. That way I will be sure of the accuracy of the width of my fuselage..

To see close-ups of my welding on the landing gear truss click here.