Making a Rotisserie for the Fuselage - Part 3

As part of my effort to re-engage in building my wings, I needed to order some new Primer. My old AKZO Nobel 2 part epoxy primer, although proven by me to work well enough enough at 7 years plus older than the shelf life date on the cans, is now so old and unused that I have decided not to continue to try to work with it. So I ordered a new can of catalyst and primer - expensive stuff. Picked up a tip from a fellow builder to get 8 empty quart sized paint cans from HD airplane supply and pour the contents into each of these smaller cans to make it easier to pour, store, and prepare. Having had real experience with this in the past by spilling it on the floor while trying to pour in in the small mixing cups,  and knowing precisely how bad smelling and toxic the catalyst is, I think this is a very good idea.

In addition to the primer, I decided I also needed some additional AN bolt hardware to finish the  rotisserie. Each spider leg has two holes in either end of it, and each of those are between 7/16 to 1/2 inch wide on average. With the hole on one end being addressed by the AN3 hardware and wood spacers, etc., I needed to figure out how to attach the other end to the angle. This other hole would normally contain the metric bolts that came with the engine stand. I need to use this other predrilled hole and drill an additional hole somewhere near the middle of each spider to provide the necessary holes to attach the angle iron to the spider.  You need to drill the extra hole in the middle to ensure that the angle is secured in at least two places on the spider arm, so that it cannot rotate out of position.

The next problem is figuring out what length bolts I should use for the remaining holes, to ensure they are short enough so that they do not come into contact with the firewall after attaching each angle to the spider on one end and the center mounting plate on the other. Each of the lugs on the spiders allows for about 1 and 1/2 inches clearance from the firewall. Unfortunately, the metric bolts that come with the engine stand are about 1 1/4 inches long after being inserted into the hole in the spider, so that leaves a very uncomfortable 1/4 inch of free space between the firewall and the angle iron adn spider bar - This is NOT good enough for me. 

SO I need to get shorter length bolts and corresponding hardware. That means I needed to go back to the suppliers and the conversion/identification charts to figure out which AN hardware I should get. My decision, based on measuring hole diameters and lengths and grip requirements and such, was the following:

For the other big hole in the spider and the 1/8 inch thick angle iron that will be attached to it, I decided on either AN7-11A or AN8-11A, since the holes sizes seem to hover somewhere in the vicinity of either one. I order both, and I will see which one gives the better. tighter fit. After I figure that out, I will know what size hole I have to drill in the angle iron.

For the second hole in the middle of each spider to lock the angle iron in place like others seem to have done, I decided to use AN3-7A bolts. Both of these bolt choices should leave at least a half inch or more of clearance from the firewall after being bolted together. That I think I can live with. I also ordered the required nuts and washers for all bolts. The AN7 and AN8 bolts get AN960-716, 726L, 816, and 816L washers, and AN365-720A and AN365-820A, or MS21044N8 lock nuts. The AN3 bolts use the same nuts I already received from Straight Flight, so I think I already have enough of those to use on the shorter AN3 bolts as well.  

I also ordered some hardware that I mentioned long ago in my blog when working on the fuel tanks. I ordered about 50 NAS1352-08-8P cad-plated socket head cap screws to replace the fuel tank access plate screws provided by Vans - AN515-8R8. I have seen too many posts from builders stating how difficult it is to remove Phillips head screws from the access plates of the fuel tanks when you need to service or replace the fuel senders or the fuel line or return attachment hardware or connections. There are 17 of these screws for each fuel tank, so you only need 34, but I always need extras, so I ordered a few extras. Somebody on VAF also asked if a washer would be needed for these cap screws, since their grip width of the head is not as wide as the AN515 screw heads. I am glad he asked that question, as I would never even thought about that. The washer for the cap screw is AN960-8 or AN960-8L for the thin version. I ordered 50 of each of those as well.

My order was shipped from Spruce's Georgia location, and at first I found this to be strange, since most western-based orders are processed by the Southern California location. But on second thought, with southern California's horrible pandemic situation, I am actually relieved that my order came from somewhere else. It also wised me up a bit about hardware orders or any orders for that matter that I will be needing for supplies, parts etc., as I re-engage. I need to be careful about where these are coming from, and develop a process to clean them carefully when I receive them - just to be safe. It is supposed to be here in a couple of days, and then I will resume the work on the rotisserie.

Coming - up - I need to degrease/remove the oil coating from my QB fuse, which now has a layer of fine abrasive forest fire ash particles on it from all the fires in the state this past summer and fall. I have stupidly left this unattended ever since it was delivered to me in 2018. This stuff even penetrated inside the house, so everything is covered with it, inside and out. So this is long overdue, and needs some serious attention. Also coming soon is the upgraded electrical service and heat into my garage. Enough is enough, and I really need to address my hostile building environment this year if I ever want to finish this project. I will also need to order more Proseal and some special formulated sealant for the fuel tank access plates. More on that later.

Fixing My RIGID 14 inch Bandsaw

 these pics are year a year and half old, but the pics of the mods I performed may still help somebody else along the way, especially if  the quality of any substantial products starts to go way down due to COVID impacts, as I have already witnessed many times. The simple fact is that even for those companies that are still in operation, many of them are working with reduced staff or have experienced reductions in their labor force, and so the number and quality of those products may suffer as  result. Unfortunately, The RIGID 14 inch band saw suffered from many quality problems long before COVID. Thankfully there were some things you could do to help solve many of the problems and make it a almost first-rate tool.

First was replacing the stock black rubber  tires, which required removing both wheels from the saw. You have to completely disassemble the table, guides, and saw blade, but it wasn't too difficult to do: I found and ordered some orange colored neoprene replacement tires. removing the old tires was easy because they were horribly cracked and deteriorated. These needed to go away because they are hard rubber that develops uneven ridges over time, and this contributes to the vibration of the saw. The new tires are softer so they absorb vibration better, and the blade also tracks better. The hard part was getting them on  each wheel. When done, they looked like this:

In the last pic you can see that the width is slightly less than the entire width of the track. This was the result of my over-aggressive sanding of the edges of the tires. This was necessary because the width of the metal track of each wheel is about 7/8 inches, but the tires only come in a 1 inch width. I spent quite a bit of time reading others posts about this. Some tried fitting it "as is" but it does not sit properly in the tire track, and others tried cutting the width with a utility knife. Neither of these methods worked very well, if at all. 

Finally somebody came up with a way to fairly accurately reduce the width of the tires by sanding them down. However, this method still required some careful preparation. Basically you had to fashion a piece of wood long enough to support the tire, and with a 7/8 inch width. then you had to put the tire over the wood, clamp it down tight so that the remaining portion of the tire extended beyond the wood width, and then you carefully run it on your belt sander. Here are the pics and the number of tools involved:

the tricky part about this was not being too aggressive with the sanding and checking your progress often. The sander only reached so far, so you had to do 2/3 of it on one side and then turn it around to do the remaining portion. The idea was to keep sanding until the width of the tire was reduced to the correct depth, and stop sanding before you started to sand away the wood. The above pic does not show the tire all clamped up, which was the other difficulty. but when you hit the sander the tire is wrapped around the wood and clamped in numerous pace to keep it from moving. The hardest thing about the the clamping was being able to clamp it securely but leave enough clearance to allow the tire material to be removed by the sander without also removing material from your bar clamps. The assembly became quite heavy and unbalanced after all the clamps were applied, so this part was a bit challenging. As I stated previously, mine were a little over done, but they still seem to serve their purpose well and do not cause the saw blade or tire to move as long as proper tension is maintained on the blade.

The next big task was disassembling the saw from the stand so that a 3/4 inch piece of plywood could be fashioned that the motor and the saw would both rest on. One of the biggest causes of vibration of this saw was the hard rubber feet that the motor mounts sat on. The fix was to completely remove the rubber feet and mount the motor on the plywood. This fix also required some longer mounting bolts, and there were several vent holes in the metal stand that also had to be transferred and re-created in the plywood base. Cutting the board to size was easy. Cutting those vent slots mounting bolt slots - not so much.

Next was to reassemble the saw and motor with the new plywood stand, re-install the wheels and balance them. The wheels on this saw were notoriously unbalanced. I followed the procedures to determine the unbalanced areas, and used self sticking pinewood derby lead weights with epoxy glue to mount them to the correct locations on each wheel. 

Then came the replacement link belt from Harbor Freight, which replaces the hard rubber belt that came with the saw. This further reduces vibration because the rubber belt develops a memory as it wraps around the pullies of the motor and the bottom wheel. This causes a bump in certain locations in the belt that adds to the vibration.

The links are removeable to get the correct belt length, but it is quite the jigsaw puzzle to figure out how to do this. The other problem was not clearly understanding which way the links needed to be oriented on the pullies. After a while I found pics that clarified this. Operation of the saw confirmed that I had them positioned correctly.

The last mod was to replace the stock, metal saw blade guides with a composite product called Cool BLocks. These keep the temp of the blade down. which results in more efficient cutting and longer life of the saw blade.

And finally my math to figure out the width of the wheels and the new tires and how much I needed to remove, using a digital caliper:

And finally the packaging for the replacement tires I purchased. Once all these changes were completed I put the saw back together, did the nickel test, and the difference was like night and day. No this saw runs much more smoothly, and I can trust it with finer cuts for the airplane parts that it will be making. I also bought a rolling stand set from HF that I have not installed on it yet. Once I put my new shed together the saw will go in there, and I will be able to move it around easily on this new stand. 

This was the last thing I worked on that had anything to do with the plane over a year and half ago.

Next up, went back to HF to purchase the 1000 lb engine stand that many other RV 8 builders have used to fabricate a rotissorrie for the QB fuselage to aid in  numerous tasks with assembling parts, panting, and mounting the landing gear, etc. And yes, you have to fabricate more parts to complete this project, but it is not ear as difficult as fixing the bandsaw was. 

KPR

Restarting yet again - a year and half later

 Hard to figure out exactly where to start this Blog again. Recap - I screwed up the inner and outer skin of my left wing LE Mode in April of 2019. Tech Counselor came out and we discussed using a planishing hammer and dolly to reform the damage to the outer LE skin and inner subskin. I bought the hammer and the dolly, and was about to attempt the task of re-forming the skin, when I had yet another epiphany. 

1. I realized that positioning the dolly had to be done exactly right in a very tight spot inside the LE, and I determined that this would just be next to impossible for me.

2. After having a very honest conversation with myself, I also realized that even if I managed to reform the skins correctly, this mod went wrong almost from the start where I did not create the wood form blocks for the sub skin properly. This meant that curve of the LE of the subskin has NEVER been formed exactly as it should, and leaves a gap between the outer Le skin and the subskin that then causes issues with how the removeable plate would sit when screwed onto the subskin. It also puts additional stress on the rib flanges underneath. IOW, the removable plate will NEVER sit flush the outer skin because of the subskin deformity, and the added stress in the rib might lead to other structural problems later. I should have taken much more care and ensured that the wood form blocks I used to bend the subskin EXACTLY matched from the curvature of the LE Rib so that the radius would have mated with the LE skin correctly.

3. The final straw for me was the realization that, after seeing it all come together, there was a much easier way to approach this whole thing, without the need to use the massive subskin and all the forming, measuring, bending, cutting, laying up, and riveting that was involved. I also realized that I could still attempt this mod AFTER the plane was built per the plans that would take very little time, and could be done using much simpler techniques than my original design.

As a result of this, I decided to abandon the entire mod and order the necessary new parts, including a new left wing LE skin and some ribs to build a stock LE. The only thing I will still do differently is order a left wing LE skin from Vans WITHOUT the cutout for the stall warning vane service access plate. 

It is sad to have spent so much time and effort on this, only to reach the conclusion that I need to abandon it. It is even more sad to come to this decision only after assembling and almost completing it.  However, I am not sad about having made the attempt, as I learned tons about airplane design in the process, and I now have a very deep appreciation for those that undertake the challenge of designing airplanes from scratch. So my only regret is the time I have lost, but nothing else. Basically it was not until seeing entire mod coming together to figure out that there was a much easier, simpler, less invasive and less time-consuming way to do this. I'll keep the details of that to myself for now.

So what happened after all that?

Instead of working on the fuel tank as I previously stated in my last post, I spent the next couple of months working on some mods for my 14 inch RIGID bandsaw.  This saw became notorious for not being very well built to the point that it vibrated so badly that it was difficult to make fine, accurate cuts. With the forming of the forward Fuel tank mounting brackets looming in the distant future that would require the use of my bandsaw, I decided to spend the time to perform several well-documented mods to reduce the vibration and turn it into the tool that it should be. There are numerous You Tube videos on the subject and I watched all of them.  

I needed to purchase some new Neoprene tires for both wheels, some longer mounting bolts for the motor as well as the saw base itself, a custom cut piece of 3/4 inch plywood to fit over the top of the mounting stand, and some new composite saw guides. After much work on this, I ended up with a good saw that passes the "nickel" test, where you place a nickel on the saw table on its skinny edge, then turn the saw on. If the saw is balanced properly, the nickel will stay on its edge without falling over. I was able to achieve this to my satisfaction. 

The end result was that I could now cut the 1/4 inch thick Fuel Tank Angle Mounting brackets with reasonable accuracy on the bandsaw to reduce the amount of forming work to do after the initial cuts. One of the most challenging parts of the saw mod was the need to trim the 1 inch wide neoprene tires down to about 7/8 inches so that they fit in the wheel tracks properly. This required making a special wood frame and using my belt sander to trim the edges accordingly. That, balancing the wheels, and adding the 3/4 inch plywood base and a new composite "link" belt all contributed to solving the vibration problems with the saw. Unfortunately this was yet another delay in the build.

Then, my wife and I needed to take a much needed vacation together, so spent the next couple of months focusing on a multi-faceted trip the New York for the first time. We spent one week in New York City and did all the NYC things a newbie would want to do - Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island, 9-11 Memorial and Museum visit, which I highly recommend to any red-blooded American, went to a Broadway show, Times Square, Stood outside during a Today Show airing, had a real New York Pizza slice, learned how to ride the subway, went to Grand Central Station, Went to Battery Park, the Fashion district, visited the famous toy store FAO Schwartz, and much more.

Then we flew off to Buffalo and took a shuttle to Niagra Falls, Ontario to see the falls for the first time. We had so much fun there, and the falls were so beautiful, that we both want to go back someday. this all happened in early September of 2019. As the whole world now knows, only a few short months later all of New York and the rest of the world would be shut down and fighting for its life due to the COVID pandemic. I have not been back on the build ever since May of 2019 as the the wind just went out my sails after coming to decision about the mod, and too many other things got in the way. After  our vacation, winter and the cold set in yet again, and I still had no heat in my garage. 

Then COVID showed up in the spring of 2020, and the massive wild fires in Colorado soon followed, and it was a struggle to stay alive and to breathe through smoke and ash all at the same time. I almost lost relatives in the Troublesome Fire in Grand County - very scary. So airplane building was not on my list of things to do throughout that entire period.

I endured multiple furloughs and layoffs at work last year, only to find myself working 15 hours days, 7 days a week, for at least a couple of months. So you could say that yes, I kept my job, which was a good thing, but at great personal cost to my overall health and well-being.  Now we are in 2021, where winter is once again upon me, and still with no heat in my garage. What a wildly exhausting time it has been over the past year and a half. 

Is there a plus side to any this? Well, in the interest of counting my blessings, both kids have graduated college, have jobs, and are out of the house and successfully on their own. Several major financial burdens have ended, I have not contracted COVID nor have any of my family members, and COVID vaccinations have begun. Aside from politics and some extremely idiotic people in this world, it seems like the sun may be trying to shine on the world again. So I decided it is also time for me to re-engage with the plane project again. I need to order parts from Vans and finish the wings.

More to come..... Sorry for the long hiatus. Stay safe, respectful, and peaceful everyone. Life is too short. I'll have pics of the bandsaw mod, planishing hammer and dolly, and some other stuff in the next post.

Using a Fly Cutter for the Very First Time

I purchased this tool a long time ago, expecting that I would need to use it sooner or later. My initial expectation was that I would be using it to cut round holes for certain instruments on the instrument panel. I did NOT expect that I would need to use it on my fuel tank.

Basically, I needed to cut out the entire section of metal on the inboard fuel tank rib s that an access plate can be installed to allow servicing of the fuel tank in that area, should the need ever arise. Since I decided NOT to install the capacitive sender kit from Vans per their recommendation, and I am now going to switch to the normal float sender instead, the access plate would also normally contain the mounting flange for float sender, as well as the AN 833 hardware for the fuel pickup line fitting, that takes fuel from the pickup line and routes it through an elbow joint through the access plate.This will be how things get assembled for the right fuel tank, as it will be a stock tank per the plans for the most part.

The left tank, on the other hand, does not contain the stock fuel pickup line, but instead will use a flop tube as I have described previously. In addition, since I am still using the flop tube in the left tank, I cannot install the float sender in it's intended original position, as it will interfere with it. SO I will need to put the float sender in the next bay over, and mount it to the rear baffle instead of on the access plate on the T-703 tank rib web.

Aside from all that, I still need to install the access panel on the rib web, but instead of using the T-708 plate on the left tank, I will use the other solid plate that came with the capacitive sender kit. the pics will show this more clearly later. Anyway, before I even get to that, I have to cut a very large hole, so large in fact that it is too big for hole saw, and for a spade bit or other type of drill bit. the Fly wheel cutter tool was specifically designed for this situation.

The plate gets prosealed and screwed onto the rib web so that you can access from the wing after removing the wing fairing. Although it is a tight space, you are supposed to be able to remove this plate and service the tank in certain ways without the need to remove the tank from the wing. A reinforcement ring goes on the other side of the rib web and serves as the mounting bracket for the access plate. Here is a pic of that bracket with the T-410 stiffeners precut in side of it. I used snips to separate the small tangs holding each part together, and then used a small file to grind down the remaining slag. Later I found out that you can pretty much just lightly twist these parts and they will separate.  am always cautious about this sort of thing from my plastic model building days, since twisting the parts of the tree would sometime remove portions of the actual part. SO you learned to use snips or clippers to keep from damaging the plastic parts.On the right is the parts removed from each other, adnon the left is the part for the right fuel tank with everything still attached as it came from the factory:

The plans do not mention how big the hole needs to be, just that you need to make one (another Vans instruction feaut-pa). So after researching some builders sites I realized that the hole needs to match the opening in the reinforcement bracket shown above - duh! So this was as easy as placing the bracket over the stiffening ring on the aft end of the rib web, and tracing the inner circle onto the web:

Next came the "art" of placing a drill board on the drill press table, followed by the rib, and then figuring out how to clamp everything down solid.I also needed to find the precise diameter and then the radius of the circle. It turned out to be a 5.25 inch diameter, with a 2 and 5/8 inch radius on each side of the center. I needed to mount the fly wheel cutter into the drill press chuck as shown, so that I could mark the center for the drill bit:

 The very next thing you need to do is setup the belts on your drill press, or reduce your speed adjustment to achieve the absolute lowest RPM that you can achieve with your drill press. With mine being a standard large floor model press, I was able to adjust the belts to get it down to 250 RPM.

Next was the task of setting up the cutter as precisely as possible for the radius. Safety point - the point on end of the cutter is EXTREMELY sharp - do not mess around with this - keep your fingers clear of it at all times, and keep the drill press unplugged until you are ready to use it, and all adjustments have been completed.The tool comes with a set of Allen head screws to adjust the radius of the cutter from the center of the pilot bit, which is a 1/4 inch drill bit. IN addition, a second Allen screw is used to adjust the depth of the cutter compared to the depth of the pilot bit. The instructions say to set the cutter depth 1/4 inch higher than the tip of the pilot bit - the idea being that the pilot bit drills the hole in the center to provide a stable grip for the cutter to retain the set radius without wandering. A drill board underneath the part to be cut is also ESSENTIAL for this to work properly.

Another Safety tip: When the cutter makes contact with the metal, it emits a very loud and uncomfortable squeal. it sounds kind of like when a kid scrapes his finger nails across a blackboard - yup - it's just about that bad. So, I highly recommend that you wear ear muffs during this operation as well as safety glasses and leather gloves. 

With everything positioned correctly, and the worked clamped down properly, you then dawn some thick heavy work gloves and keep all hands clear of the work piece until the drill is stopped. You start bringing the pilot bit down until it engages, and then you SLOWLY apply more pressure on the press to keep bringing the cutting bit down onto the metal. Check the cut as it engages and make sure that it does not wander from the marks that you had drawn earlier.If the part moves, or worse yet, if it becomes hung, make sure you stay out of harms way and then pull the plug on the drill press to stop it. Do NOT try to rescue the part from its demise. This is where this tool is absolutely dangerous.  It can take  a piece of metal and turn it into a disemboweling razor knife in a split second, and then it can take that piece of deadly metal and fling it directly at you, which is why you need to keep the drill press at the lowest possible RPM.

Make no mistake, this thing can KILL you in an instant if things start to go awry. So pay attention and take every possible safety precaution before starting the process.

If everything goes according to plan, eventually the cutter will go all the way through the metal, and you can stop the drill press. Then UNPLUG the drill press from the wall. Then and only then should you reach in with gloved hands and remove the part. Here is the new hole in the rib after the operation was complete. Notice the shavings that it creates as it cuts:

That circular piece of metal has a razor edge on it since part of the cut was made against the curvature of the stiffening ring. You could slice meat with it - or your fingers, so again, be careful when you handle this thing.

Next is a pic of the rib with its new hole, with the reinforcement bracket positioned over it, both types of access cover plates, with and without the sender and fuel pickup line hardware holes, and a cork gasket.

A couple more things I learned from my research and several phone calls to Vans - throw the cork gasket away and DO NOT USE IT  - PERIOD! Over time the gasket becomes saturated with fuel and WILL START LEAKING - so NO CORK GASKET! I also learned that the mounting flange of the fuel float sender unit has a rubber gasket that you also SHOULD NOT USE, as it starts leaking as well. As I stated earlier, my left tank will use the plate on the left, and my right tank will use the standard plate on the right.
SO that is how you setup and use a fly wheel cutter tool in a drill press to cut very large, precise holes in metal. Now I just have to debur the edges of the rib a bit and continue with the remaining fuel tank assembly tasks.

On another note, There is also a trap door with a hinge on it that I need to fabricate. TO do so, Vans told me that I needed to use the hinge material from the flap hinges that came with the wing kit. Since these hinges were 6 feet long, I had stored them up on my wide garage shelf with the other long parts like the angles used for the longerons for the fuselage that are 15 feet long. The problem was that I had to get to them on the shelf, which was not exactly "easy." I had to move a bunch of stuff off the shelf first in order to get to the hinges. I finally got them down, and spent a large part of today, cleaning up the garage and putting everything back in its place.

More on the trap door fabrication tomorrow.

KPR.

After a long absence........

.....I think it's time to get back to building an airplane. Lets just say, as I have said before, that life keeps getting in the way. The story that follows does have an aviation and airplane-building tie-in at the end, so bear with me as I try to remember how to type blog entries and add relevant pics to my posts.

To fast forward things a bit, starting with my last post, after graduating college, my oldest son managed to get a job, pay off half of his student loans, and buy a house in the Denver area (of all places), all within a few months of his college graduation. The house that he bought needed a lot of work, and so he decided that he and some friends (some of whom had volunteered to help repair and build new homes in New Orleans after Katrina had devastated the area) would basically flip the house, starting with the upstairs.

They completely gutted everything and rebuilt the entire upstairs of the house. One of the last things to go was an old door frame and the front door that went with it. When I saw the existing door for the first time I noted that it was just about to fall over, and you could not even close it completely. The next time I saw the door, it had been completely removed and replaced with a brand new door, and the old front door was laying on its side on the front patio. My son said, " I have no idea what I am going to do with this old door now."

It was then that I had brilliant idea. While looking over the door I noticed that it appeared to be a solid core door. I then asked my son to get me a level or two. I then started to run the level across the door and noticed that it seemed to be very straight. After a few minutes I told my son that I would be happy to take the door off his hands, so we loaded it up in my truck and off I went.

So why did I want that door? There were several reasons, the first of which stems from a problem that I had been dealing with ever since I build the first work benches for my garage-based airplane-building workshop. My original work benches were unfortunately built with 2x4 side braces for each benchtop that were not cut properly at the mill. While I did check them initially to ensure that they were not warped along the wider 4 inch side of the wood, I neglected to verify that they were also true and straight along the skinnier 2 inch side of each board. The shorter side was the one that my work bench tops ended up sitting on. As you may have already guessed, the bench tops soon adopted the shape of the warped side of each 2x4, resulting in about 1/4 inch bend in each bench top. Keep in mind that this was also after applying not one, but two 3/4 inch plywood benchtops for the top. Here is a pic of the original bench shortly after I had completed it in 2009. It makes me sick to my stomach to look at it because the bend in the top is very noticeable to me, and I should have corrected it right then and there.

My "solution" was to place shims in the middle of the bench top to try to level  it out as best I could. I have been living with this situation ever since I began my build. This is where the door from my son's house comes in. As soon as I saw that door I knew that it was time to address my crooked workbench problem once and for all. Last fall I began the arduous process of removing all the stuff from my existing bench, unscrewing the bench top and those crappy 2x4 side supports, and I began the process of preparing the door for use as my new benchtop.

One of the key changes I made was to replace those crappy 2x4s with some 1x8 wood from my old wing kit crate. I obviously check those this time to make sure that skinny 1 inch wide edge was straight.

There was one other major reason that I wanted to use the door. My original benches were not wide enough to support my dimpling table from Cleaveland Tools. To fix that problem I had to build a hinged extension to the edge of the bench top. The door is wide enough to support the dimpling table without the need for any extension. So I get a straight bench top and a wide-enough one all at the same time. A win-win.

Here is the "new" bench after completing all the necessary modifications:

It's a little bit thicker, a bit wider, and a bit shorter than the former workbench, but at least I know it's flat. Now perhaps I can get on with the build. Thanks to my son for providing me with a fix to a nagging problem. Sometimes you just have to make changes to the shop before you can proceed with the build. I also need to get heat into my garage somehow to solve another very bad problem in the winter months. I plan on getting back to work on the wings in a few weeks.

Removing wing skins and stripping vinyl, and pics of recent visit of two almost completed RV projects

I removed the top outboard wing skin of the left wing and began the process of stripping the vinyl. After the drilling is over you kind of start to dread the deburring part a bit because this must be done on both sides of the skin. SO there are a total of 8 separate wing skins for the top and bottom of both wings(4 per wing), but you have to debur holes on both sides, so that is all the holes on each wing skin times 2 for the front and back. Then you have to debur the holes in the rib and spar flanges - again that is also both sides of each of those. If you focus too much on the large number of holes then you can become overwhelmed sometimes, so it is best just to get started and see how long it takes to get through a certain number of them. Then you will know how long it will take to do the rest of them. When the time comes dimple the skins I will take my time to ensure that I do not create any figure 8 holes in the skins.

Anyway, here is one side of one wing skin with the vinyl removed. The new soldering iron worked much better, but it was not perfect:

Next is another important pic. When you remove the skins, you realize just how much material was removed during the match drilling exercise. The silver speckles are the chips of aluminum. These all need to be removed.

And then I took this pic of my makeshift movie night movie screen. It was such a nice weekend after having been such horrible weather around here for the past several weeks that I just felt compelled to get out the king size bed sheet and use some of my clamps for something other than mashing metal parts together. I rig a projector on the opposite end of the garage and connect that to my laptop to show some movies every once in a while. Works pretty well. My seating capacity in the garage is a bit reduced with both wings on the stands, but it still holds a few folks.

Next are some pics I promised a while back. Thanks to John Tedder and Lyn Langer whose RV-7As are well on their way to becoming real flying machines. I am really interested in Lyn's aircraft because he has a 180 HP IO-360 from Superior with their extremely popular Millineum Cylinders. I just noticed on their website that they have come out with a 195 and 200 HP version that I can build myself by attending their 2 week class. I took a ton of pics but will include a few of them here.

Here is Lyn's engine:

And the rest of the aircraft. I can't wait until mine is looking like this someday:

John had his wings off while he works on his avionics. I checked out his wing wiring, fuel tanks, and landing light installation....

NOthing beats seeing things assembled up close. If you get these opportunities you need to take tons of pics because they will help later. I captured most of Lyn's fuel system routing from the firewall to the fuel servo to the injector manifold and out to the cylinders. Perhaps I'll post some of those pics later on.

All for now. I hope to have all wing skin and rib holes deburred by the end of this week.

A couple more lighting improvements to the shop and continuing with drilling the skins

Thanks again to my niece's fiance Steve, who is a licensed electrician, I was able to add one more light fixture to the far side of my garage. I put in a 48 inch x 2 bulb T5 54 watt florescent fixture under my large shelf that held most of my larger wing parts all this time. I picked it up from HD after staring at it for a while and then realizing that I was almost blinded by the amount of light it was putting out. It really lights up the entire bottom side of my right wing, as well as the band saw.

Steve hard wired it to an existing light socket and switch, and now that area of the garage is completely illuminated. Now I just need to figure out how to heat the damn thing during the winter months. The holiday weekend was literally a "wash" in that we were inundated with heavy rain, wind, hail, and tornadoes. Heck, a pic of the street in front my house even made it in the Saturday newspaper with a huge funnel cloud over the school right next to my house. Scary to think that came that close to losing the house, and even more disconcerting to think that I almost lost everything I have put into the airplane. Luckily the funnel dissipated and the clouds wondered on to the north.

So not much time was spent working on the wings, except that I did manage to finish drilling the bottom left wing skins. I spent some quality time vacuuming the shop, since I had not done that in a while, and the debris from cutting and drilling the steel support brackets for the stands left my work benches covered in steel remnants. I also tried to follow another section of instructions from Vans that tell you to "draw a couple of lines on the skins that intersect the center of the holes from the wing tie down bracket."

The problem is this:
The main wing "skins" do NOT intersect the tie down hole. The bracket and the hole for the wing tie down ring are located at a point along the leading edge skins, NOT the main wing skins, and the main wing "skin" does not but  up against the leading edge skin in that location. Instead, one of the removable inspection plates is what actually butts up against the leading edge skin. SO the procedure should say to temporarily mount the inspection plate to the bottom wing skin, and take a straight edge to align the center of the tie down ring hole in the bracket to the inspection plate cover, as shown in the following pic:

The leading edge skin will butt up against the inspection plate cover, and the mark from the cover can be transferred to the leading edge skin. The LE also has a small pilot hole that was drilled very close to the access hole for the left wing, and I wondered what the extra hole was for at the time I was messing with the access hole cover plate support bracket. Now I know that this was intended as the starting point for enlarging the hole through which the tie down ring can be inserted into the tie down bracket. THe next pic shows the hole:

The idea is that Vans designed it so that the ring is removable and is stowed in the airplane to reduce drag. This hole is not an exact placement, since the position of the final hole for the ring depends on the accuracy and attachment of the holes drilled in the main wing spar and tie down bracket. Therefore you need to measure carefully and file this starting hole in the correct direction as necessary to establish the true center point of your tie down bracket hole. I'll have lots of vinyl removal and deburring and dimpling coming up, as well as leading edge prep work and some fuel tank prep work. Wow, I can't believe I am about to start prepping my fuel tanks already..... Very cool. I just wish Vans did a better job on their manual instructions for the wing section - pretty piss poor as I have said before.

Latest Major Distraction Out of the Way - Getting Ready to Build Again

This will be the only reference I make to a project that literally almost brought me to my knees and severely crippled my ability to work on the plane. A before and after pic of the upstairs bathroom should take care of it, and then it is time to talk airplane building again.

Before the remodel from hell:

And after:

Took way too long and cost way too much in time, money, and sanity,but it is done. Still have a downstairs mess to take care of but will tackle that next year AFTER my wings are done.

Yesterday I finally managed to put together my new large paint table. One of the things that all the bathroom stuff did provide as a small contribution for the airplane build, was a very big box that the downstairs shower kit came in. I saved this box with intent of turning it into a very large paint table that I can use to prep and prime many large wing parts at the same time.

I used 36inch wide 2x4 inch wire fencing that has been laying around the house forever doing basically nothing, some 1x3 lumber, and a variety of different screws to complete the project yesterday. Just as was the case for the smaller table I built, the hard part about this is stretching the fencing out tight enough so that it will not sag when all the parts are placed on it.

I also had to close up the open end of the box on one side by using a short 2x2 piece of wood and some gorilla tape. This paint table should serve me well for many other priming and painting sessions to come. I started by cutting the top off, then I cut the flap on the end of that piece off and taped it to the end of the table. Then I measured, cut and screwed the wood frame together, then attached it with screws to the cardboard,and then cut, fit, and attached the wire fencing to the wood frame that surrounds the cardboard box.Simple but effective.Still, this is a very large item that I will have to be able to store safely somewhere.

Next step - prepare to get very sore arms and hands after all the scuffing, cleaning,and priming  of the wing ribs. All this while the next winter storm is bearing down on me. Great, just great! But, hey, at least I am building a plane again.

Just Sanding Dust Today

Nothing too dramatic today. I managed to get out after work and grab my drill with a drum sanding attachment and went to work on my Leading edge jig (its actually more of a support stand than a jig). I sure wish I would have resolved my padding solution before I cut the panels with the jig saw. Sometimes I am so precise with my measurements that they are bit too precise. I had a percect fit for my leading edge ribs, but absolutely no additional space for the .025 inch thick wing skins or the anti scuff material around the edges of the supports. Needless to say there is a lot of sanding dust in the garage now, and since I free handed the additional wood removal with the sanding drum on the drill, I have very uneven gaps along the edges of the supports.

Vans says this is all that is needed since all you are doing is supporting the match drilled leading edge assembly. Problem is that there are a lot of posts from builders who have experienced the difficulties of trying to cleco all the holes in the skins to the ribs. Everyone seems to be able to get one side done relatively easy, and then struggles with the wrap around and clecoeing of the other side. Most builders have reported that a different method than what Vans describes is wht works best, i.e. working from the nose rearward or vices versa. Anyway, as soon as I get the supports widened up a bit more I will tiral fit the skin and the LE ribs and get to see for myself how this will go.Getting ready for one more blast of winter around here for the next couple of days (was 80 degree today - sigh......). Can't wait to get my LE mock up put together so I can finish the gun ports.

Fooled ya!!

For some reason I think that I must have exceeded bloggers memory lmitations when I tried to add a second video to the same post. So here is the second video I eluded to in my previous post inc ase you were wondering where that went. Can't wait to get the full mockup done. I have a rather huge order to place with Aircraft Spruce and Vans. That is one of the problems with attending these SportAir workshops - you come away realizing that there is now a bunch of cool stuff that you need to get so you can try out all the cool things you learned in the class. I now need fiberglass, flox, micro, epoxy resin, peel ply, and so on and so on. Welcome to the expensive world of composite materials! I also need to order a small sheet of .025 alclad aluminum to use as a a leading edge wing skin. I will attach that to the two rib cutouts from my LE wing jig so that I have  a test surface upon which to apply my mocked up gun fairings. Happy Monday all! (If there is such a thing...)

Transferring Wing Parts to Different Staging Areas

I managed to drill the last two conduit holes in the end ribs today, and set out to re-organize some of the parts on my shelves in the garage to prepare for other wing sub-assemblies like the leading edges, fuel tanks, ailerons, and flaps. The main wing skins have been sitting silently on one of my shelves for quite a while now. I am getting anxious to start working on them as well as the leading edges so these things can start looking like wings for a change. There is still a significant amount of work to do before that happens.

I moved the leading edge skins to the same location as my fuel tank skins so I can start working on those as soon as work benches are clear of wing spars and main ribs. I then attached the main ribs to the left wing spar again to prepare to drill and debur all the spar flange holes in each rib. There are two holes per side for a total of 4 holes per rib, times 14 ribs per wing, times 2 wings, equals a total of 56 #40 holes pe wing, or 112 total for both wings.Then you have to double that for total holes to debur since each hole has two sides. I really get depressed when I start tallying up figures like that, because the task always seems so never-ending. If you just stick to one hole at a time then eventually you get through it. Then I still have several more additional holes to drill for wire and tubing runs.

Other than that I spent the rest of today troubleshooting and researching a car problem with the mule that needs some attention. Gotta get the ride ready for Oshkosh, since it IS just right around the corner ya know! Then I had to fix the snow blower so it would be ready for the next big winter blast that comes along. Looks like it will be 70+ degrees around here by week's end. It will be real hard to focus at work this week.

As for the car, I think I need to replace my fan clutch, but it may also involve anything from a tensioner pully, idler pully, fuel pressure regulator, or engine mounts. I just try to look at these things positively as opportunities to improve my engine and systems troubleshooting skills so that I will be able to put them to good use on the plane later on. If I can figure out what is wrong with my car and fix the problem, I should be able to do the same with an airplane engine, or so I hope.

Also need to rastle me up a couple of turkey basters so I can meter the primer more efficiently in my spray gun without making such a mess when the time comes. When my Dynon Pitot tube arrives, I will need to give some serious thought to the mounting locations for everything and the length of the tubes I should use. Some builders are using the full default length, while others are trimming them down in differnt lengths. The bottom line is you want everything to be easily serviceable, and then well secured to prevent movement and fatigue from vibration or impacting parts of the pitot mast or the wing.

So the shop is pretty much ready to rock, and the weather should be getting warmer for the most part. Sounds like time for building and flying to me. Need to get back in the Citabria again but it may be down for another week or two to finish a fairly major wing skin patch job that needed to be done. So who wants to go flying?!

Wing Stands almost done - sort of....

Over the weekend I made pretty good progress on the Wing stands. As shown in this next pic, the support angles are now installed on both sets of stands. I am pleased with the way these have gone together. The Wing spar shown is actually sitting up side down from its correct resting position.

I have one more major step to complete before the spars will be ready to rest on the stands. This is the attach plate that must be affixed to the W712R end rib that serves as the outermost rib of the entire wing. The wing tip will be attached to the top and bottom wing skins adjacent to this final rib. One thing I learned from several other posts and discussions with other builders is that many do not take into account the position of the wing skins at the outermost edge of the wing. The skins will overlap the outer rib and end of the wing spar by about 3/4 of an inch, and a lot of folks attach the outer wing rib right up next to the main support bracket on the stand, only to find out later during installation of the skins that they need to reposition the spar or find some other solution to allow the additional room for the over-hanging wing skins.

So hopefully I have thought this through far enough in advance to know that I needed to obtain a large enough piece of angle to provide the necessary clearance between the end rib and the support angle bracket on the stand. The solution is a 2x2x1/8 inch piece of angle that will will be cut to a 5 inch length. One half of the angle will be positioned on the forward part of the W712R Wing rib adjacent to the wing spar web, and the other half of the angle lays over the top side of the support angle bracket. The 2 inch wide angle should provide enough clearance for the overhanging wing skins. Again, pictures of this will speak a thousand words, but here as an example once again is a shot of Sean Thomas' arrangement for this, and mine will be somewhat similar:

From the above pic I think that Sean will also have this problem when the time comes, because his rib is a bit too close to the support angle. Note the thick piece of angle (looks like 1/4 inch thick) that is bolted to the rib on the top left of this pic, and how it overhangs the main support angle bracket.

Next is a shot from the top side showing the rest of the angle that attaches to the main support angle bracket. The theme here is that only one side of the wing spar actually rests on the support angle on one side. The other side is affixed to the support angle bracket via an additional angle bracket attached to the end rib. The trick to all of this is getting the attachment angle properly positioned so that the spar can be maintained in a level attitude.

I have recently read some posts from other builders who have complained about the skins becoming slightly misaligned as they try to fit them together. I can't help but think that it has at least something to do with not maintaining as level an attitude as possible for the wing spar, which causes the skins and ribs to slant one way or the other. So the real critical part to this hole thing is to get the attachment angle positioned and bolted to the end rib in the just the right spot. Note the torpedo level in the pic below as well. You not only need to be level across the width of the spar, but also along the entire span of the spar.

And finally the pic of the bolts that attach the end rib to the attaching angle.

Meanwhile, back to a couple of shots of my build. It has been a very very long time since I assembled any of the actual airplane parts together. This is always one of many - "wow this is really cool!" moments in the build when you start to see the smaller parts become bigger airplane parts. The next step after getting the wing stands done is to cleco the main wing ribs to the spar and drill the attach holes to final size. It is also a preliminary check to see how well your ribs align perpendicularly with the spar. ON the right are the ribs that folks will be stepping on top of to get into and out of the airplane, and on the far left is the end rib discussed previously.

Lots of little steps remain on the way to completing each wing, but the fixture part of this process is almost over. Getting into another cold spell around here so I decided to take a break from the shop tonight. I hope to have both attachment angles positioned on both end ribs so I can proceed with the rest of the rib prep that is required before I can finally pound some rivets.