The instructions said… “Don’t waste time making these perfect”. …well… CHECK PLUS! I had my lines all drawn and I was feeling pretty good about my plan. Right before I cut, I realized that I needed to have room for the skin to extend beyond the nose ribs, so I extended my awkwardly flat drawing […]
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Today I prepared the ribs for the horizontal stabilizer spar. It was my first time using fluting pliers. I took the advise of Paul Dye and did them while watching TV! I also took some time to practice making precise holes with my drill press. I tried with and without a punch, and with and […]
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Tonight I did the other half of last nights job with the spar caps. I drilled all the #40 holes between the cap flange and spar flange. I used a generous amount of clamps to make sure the cap sat square while drilling, and put in a few clecos as I went along. The next […]
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Last night’s goal was to prepare the spar caps and stringers. I’m getting a bit bolder with the bandsaw and cutting closer. This means less filing and the work goes much quicker. I also came up with what I think is the ideal clamping method for filing down the angles on the caps. With the […]
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Last night I continued on the task of creating horizontal stabilizer brackets. I dug around my shop in search of the best tool for cutting the heavy aluminum. The hacksaw worked well, but I could not help but think that there must be something better. I tried my Dewalt 20v oscillating tool with a metal […]
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Last night I got to do a little manufacturing. The task was to build a horizontal spar attachment bracket. This is the first time I’ve had to work with material this thick. My first challenge was to measure out all the cut lines. Being “over 40”, I did a lot of this under a desktop […]
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Today I assembled the rear spar for the horizontal stabilizer. The tasks involved were preparing and mounting hinge brackets and attaching the doubler to the spar with a great pile of rivets. Attaching the doubler to the spare web was nothing too difficult. To start, I removed ALL the plastic (I hope you are happy […]
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Today, I tucked the completed rudder in to it’s new home for a couple months in the basement to make room on the bench for the next part… The horizontal stabilizer (HS)! With the parts all laid out, I started anew with great optimism and a careful dose of “don’t screw this up”! The first […]
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Today is a great day! The first full part of my plane is built! After weeks of working, making mistakes, fixing them, I finally have something to show for all my hard work. Now that it is done, I have a new problem: Where do I store this part to keep it from being damaged […]
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Day 12 was a day that proved something. When I was starting this project, I had two options. I could setup in the garage at home, or I could setup in my hangar at the airport. The hangar is of course ideally suited to the task, but I chose the garage for two reasons: 1) […]
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