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Airplanes-Misc.
Building
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Final
Assembly-Carb Heat
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Finish Work
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Final
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Final
Assembly (cont)
The
Final Verse
My Book
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Top
Row
Photo #1 -I
pulled this off of the thick cardboard jig, then cut out the slots with
a Dremel tool. It is oversized and rough cut at this point.
From this I made a thin cardboard template that I could lay flat on my
.040 aluminum so I could cut out an accurate frame.
Photo #2 -Don
Aven at our local airport has a hydraulic metal shear and a brake to bend
it. Graciously volunteered his services and made quick work out of
the project. Used 40 thousands T-3 so it is stout. Next will
come the Lexan (TM) and then a 3 piece aluminum backing frame that will
be screwed through each layer to sandwich it all together.
Photo #3 -This
shows the aluminum attach brackets I made to secure the windscreen.
They are rough cut at this point and all of the proper nuts/bolts are not
installed. Lexan (reg. Trademark) has protective plastic overlay
still on it. I next have to fabricate an aluminum inner plate similar
to the outer frame that will sandwich the Lexan in between. There
are a total of 8 brackets that will hold the windscreen in place.
Photo #4 $ 5-With
the clear protective plastic still on the window it appears cloudy.
Note that I am using flexible chrome plated plastic door guard (automotive)
for my seal. ($10 for 26 feet) This will be installed with Silicon and
moved around so there are no air holes between the bottom of the frame
and the fuselage. I like the way it came out.
Bottom Row
Photo #1 -Spars
finally arrived. Decided to do the upper right wing first and this
is the main spar under construction. What you are seeing are 2 main
spars 1" vertically x 3/4" thick that have been epoxied to 1/8 birch ply
web. I ran the ply grain vertically. Some run it at a 45 degree
angle but never could find out why or which way. Vertical is stronger
in my opinion as the load forces would be more vertical than at a 45 degree
angle. The 3/4" x 1.5" spacer blocks will ultimately be glued in
somewhat logrithmically spaced in that they will get farther apart as they
progress out the wing and will be used as fastening blocks for my 3 compression
ribs. I also decided to have my wing attach plates bolt as close
to the end of the spar as I could and ended up with only a sixteenth of
an inch spacing between the end of the upper wing spars and the cabane
(center section) wing attach plates. This helps a lot when attaching
the upper wings and possibly has an added benefit of safety in that the
upper wings can't really move much up or down even with multiple wire failures.
If I were to build another I would go ahead and put in two wing attach
straps making the upper wing nearly cantilever.
Photo #2 - Upper
right wing flying wire bracket attach point as well as the bracket for
the struts. More info on the picture.
Photo #3 -Finally
starting the last construction phase ....... the friggen wings. Glad
I have all of the ribs ready to go. It will be interesting to see
how long they take to construct. I am now at 1235 hours. Nothing
is glued in this picture as I just wanted to make sure everything would
work the way I wanted. It did. Nothing much prettier than a
row of ribs. It will be a shame to cover them.
Photo #4 & 5 -It
only took about an hour to make the jig for the wing tip bow. First
I printed full size drawings from Model CAD then attached it with 3M 77
(TM) to 3/4 scrap ply. Next covered this with 20 mil plastic, then
screwed in block and rollers using round dowels drilled off center where
the bow needed pushed around. I then cut 1/8 strips of spruce, sanded
them, soaked them in hot water, let them sit in the jig overnight to dry
then epoxied them together. The jig was coated with Vaseline so the
release would not pose a problem. Epoxy doesn't stick to plastic
anyway but the Vaseline helps as a release. Then I put on a couple
of clamps for good measure.
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