Nov 9-11 -- Build a Rib Flange Straightening Tool

Tonight's mission is to build a straightening tool for the rib flanges. A video of the idea is here, and a fancier tool was found in a Van's Air Force forum post.

Well, "tonight" turned into three nights thanks to interruptions such as the family's Domain Controller crashing, a surprise launch of a new Amazon Web Services region, etc., etc. Nonetheless, the two photos below represent the tool. This puppy is slick, and initial tests indicate that I should save a ton of time on the wings. Just wish that I'd built it for the empennage ribs...

The base and wood immediately on top of the base are pine. All wood directly attached to the metal sidebars is maple from my scrap box. That maple was originally intended for new cabinets, but I know that you won't tell anyone!

Here's the bill of material, if you want to build your own:

• 1 ea. 2x6, cut to 18" long
• 1 ea. 2x4, cut to 10" long with an 11 degree undercut bevel on the "business end"
• 1 ea 1x1-1/2 maple (or any hardwood). I cut mine to 16" and it could be longer. Also thing that a 2x2 might be sturdier -- this handle takes a lot of abuse
• 1 ea 3" long block, made from the same maple stock. I used my biscuit jointer to insert a couple of wood biscuits and glue up a double-height block. Probably overkill, but I got to play with more toys that way.
• 1 ea. 3/16x1x3ft Weld steel flat bar, purchased at Lowes and cut into 2 ea 10" lengths. OK, cut into 12" lengths and then shortened to 10" when I screwed up alignment on 1/4" holes in one end.
• 2 ea. 1/4-20 x 2-1/2 bolts, also from Lowes Aircraft Supply. These are not aircraft grade bolts -- they just look like it.
• Washers and self-locking nuts for the bolts. I managed to purchase 1/4-20 bolts and 28-TPI nuts. Like I said, Lowes is not aircraft grade -- and mixing things up like they did was annoying. Fortunately I had nuts on hand.

Total Time: 2.5 hours (not counting going to Lowes to find a hunk of steel).

July 4 -- Build Tool to Insert Elevator Bolts

The instructions say that it's time to attach the elevators to the horizontal stabilizer, in order to check clearances and drill another hole. Yikes, this whole assembly process is a royal pain, and it took lots of searching online to see what others did. So here's a post on a tool that I built, and two other tips. Hope it saves others some time. (Sorry, no help on the agony bit...)

First, it's tough to slide a bolt thru the holes because it's tough to align the parts. Someone else posted a tip that allen wrenches make a great pin because the 90 degree bend acts as a handle. Even better, use a small one first, then guide a larger one into place. See below for a photo of the larger inserted into the assembly.

Even with this trick, it's still a pain to insert the bolt. In fact, I was speaking like a pirate while I tried with no success... Then I saw a tool that Dave Parsons built for his RV project. Mine is less refined, but works like a charm! I flattened out a couple of leftover pieces of aluminum that began life as stiffeners. The 1" belt sander worked well to cut a slot and generally shape things, followed by some metal forming in the vise. Wow, does this thing work well!

Finally, it was still tough to slide the bolt all the way home. Cleco pliers solved that!

Next up is figuring out what's rubbing. I am fairly certain that the rubbing comes from a rivet shop head that stands too tall. But not much time this weekend for building. Squandered the available time flying, bike riding, and refinishing the deck. What a spectacular Fourth of July!

Total Time: 3 Hours

Feb 20 -- Backrivet Stiffeners

Back-riveted the stiffeners to the top skin, with ProSeal under them to act as a vibration absorber. Was able to rivet a couple of lower ones too, before the ProSeal was too set up to be usable.

Bunch of rivets are going to need to be drilled out and re-set, because the shop heads are messed up. tough working conditions in there, trying to spread the skins enough to rivet. Don't want to clamp them open, because that damaged the other elevator.

Also cut down some angle iron into flat steel plates to use for riveting in tight places. The EAA Website has a great video tip on how to do this.

It got exciting though, because I did the cutting on the table saw, and the sparks ignited about 8 cubic feet of sawdust inside the saw base! Was time to clean it out anyways...

Total time on the plane: 1.5 hours.

Apr 10-11 - Shop Enhancements and Dimpling

The past few days have been as much work on the Luscombe as on this project. Spent a total of 5.5 hours dimpling metal and (mostly) adding more shop lights and carpeting the top of one workbench. Not much, perhaps, but important...

Total Time: 5.5 hours

Bucking Bars

This post is arguably really old. Tungsten bucking bars are really popular, but I can't believe what they cost. For a while now I have been purchasing as close to the source as possible, and usually that means in China.

Can't remember where I learned about this particular source, BTW.

www.chinatungsten.com is the website, but just email sales@chinatungsten.com and tell them that you are looking for bucking bars. Had two within 10 days or something like that, via FedEx. I paid $50 and $46 each for the bars shown below, plus shipping, in June of 2009. The total came to $143, and they promised 18 days delivery. As I recall, the actual shipping time was more like 12 days.

Click on either image for a full-size version of the drawing.

March 27 -- Drill Holes in HS-908

I'm as sick of these parts as you are about reading them. However today I finished everything short of affixing them to the plane.

First order of business was to pick up a parallel set at Harbor Freight, in order to have a more accurate means of laying out the hole pattern. I searched EBay for these first, and while some more interesting ones came up (notably coated to prevent rust), in the end it was just simpler to pick them up locally.

Using a combination of the parallel pieces of steel, along with some right angles and an ultra-fine sharpie, I was able to lay out accurate lines to drill holes.

Below you can see the final result (there were two brackets in the end), as well as how I accomplished this.

Time: 1.5 hours (not counting the trip to Harbor Freight)

 

March 21 - Finish Table, Air Compressor Drain

Actually most of the day was spent doing taxes -- takes an average of 3-4 weekends each year to complete them, due to complexity.

Two RV-related projects today. The first was finishing another worktable, per yesterday's blog post. The table is in the spirit of EAA chapter 1000's drawings, with two significant deviations. First, I used 2x3 lumber instead of 2x4. A bunch lighter, and still sturdy. Second, I have so much lumber in the garage that I scavenged from that supply rather than use new lumber (with the exception of most of the 2x3 pieces). But this is getting frustrating -- no matter how hard I hit the wood supply in the garage, there is still too much left! The newest table is the one farthest from the camera in the photo.

Second, I went to Home Depot to pick up come galvanized pipe and make the air compressor tank easier to drain. The built-in drain required getting down on my knees at the end of each session, so I added an easy-to-reach ballcock valve. Saw that a number of people on Van's Air Force made this same modification. The result rests on the floor, so I need to think about whether or not to elevate the compressor in order to avoid stress fractures caused by the galvanized pipe contacting the floor while the compressor is running (and in turn causing a lot of vibration).

These are both important additions to the shop -- even though neither was directly responsible for forward progress on the project.

March 18, 2010 -- HS-908 Revisited

I just wasn't happy with the results of the HS-908 brackets, and one of the core reasons was that the Scotchbrite wheel ate the aluminum quickly and irregularly. So the part did not have square edges.

I also realized that cutting aluminum on the band saw is a total pain in the ass. So a bit of time on Google and I realized that aluminum blades are available to fit a Skill saw, a table saw, and a mitre saw. One brand, MK Morse, made some amazing claims about not heating the aluminum, and cutting aluminum squarely. Found a MK Morse CSM860AC Metal Devil 8" Aluminum Cutting Circular Saw Blade on Amazon.com -- not exactly inexpensive at $59 -- and installed it in the mitre saw.

In the meantime I ordered more stock angle aluminum from Vans. This time I ordered a 12" hunk, in case I mess up again.

Wow! Exactly as advertised. The saw blade cut the stock like butter, no heat, 10 seconds, square, and clean. :)

In fact, most of the fab time was spent sanding that last little bit down, nice and square. Sanding does heat the aluminum, so even gloves didn't completely protect me from the resulting temperature. On the other hand I was able to pick up the aluminum using my bare hands immediately after cutting it with the saw.



2 hours

March 6, 2010 - Purchased More Tools

Picked up $560 worth of clecos and tools from a local builder, who was selling off what was left after he built a RV-7. Collection included several hundred clecos, some more yokes for the pneumatic squeezer, etc.

1 hour

March 3, 2010 - New Tool Chest

Received a new tool chest, rounded up tools and filled it. Amazing that a single tote-style toolbox that was overstuffed filled most of this new 24w x 60h chest!

I ordered this chest from Costco Online, despite the fact that it is not exactly what I want, and depite obvious shortcomings in the quality department. However we had a $700 rebate from Costco in return for ordering our central air conditioning thru them, so the chest was "free" in the Monopoly money sense.