Holes in aviation frames?

**JCA** · #1 01-21-2010, 06:15 PM

What is the purpose of the holes in the frames (or is it formers?) when building planes? Please see attached thumbnail.

**John Bowden** · #2 01-21-2010, 06:18 PM

To stick you finger in to align the former in the fuselage............:D

**shrike** · #3 01-21-2010, 10:07 PM

It's to allow you to push a stick through the hole to move the former on the opposite end of the section.
Or pretty much to stick you finger in to align the former in the fuselage...........

Seriously, to that end, the holes are most easily and handily punched out with a pliers type hole punch. Make a clover leaf shaped hole and it gives you something to grip.

Also seriously. When building a butt-jointed fuselage like that, you will want to pair up the formers, 'tack' glue them together and sand them to match. Having the holes in the middle makes it easier to separate them afterward. Moreso if the holes don't line up perfectly.

**milenio3** · #4 01-21-2010, 11:54 PM

Engineering to save cardboard?

Seriously... at least I use them to grab and move the former once it's inside the fuselage part... and also I think you can say that if pressure is applied to the airplane, that hole can serve as a distributor of forces... but maybe that's too engineered.

And I think old paper models don't have that hole specified (50´s or 60´s)... but don't take my word for it.

**shrike** · #5 01-22-2010, 12:33 AM

Way too engineered Gerardo.
You must now build Ken's B-58 landing gear in 1:144 as penance.

**Yu Gyokubun** · #6 01-22-2010, 01:27 AM

I guess why the designer have that holes on formers is that, as Gerard explained, it makes easier to place former in right position inside fuselage skin.

Just for your reference, in addition to make it easier to place formers, I always enlarge that hole so that we can stick something through there to apply glue onto the four corners of each gluing tab. I glue tabs one by one to the fuselage for better fitting. By doing this, as is shown in the first picture, there will be less possibility to get fuselage skin surface misaligned because the glue is applied thoroughly on the tab. If misalign occurs, white color of cut edge shows up. If you paint that edge, sometimes around the edge get blackened.

Third picture shows the model built gluing fuselage skins using this method.