Author: dale

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Splitting up the build

I heard from Stu today that he needs his shop back. I didn’t ask for how long — I suspect he may be not quite as enthused about having a large part his shop taken over with what seems like an indefinite project, especially when I’m not there for a week or two. I’ve been dealing with a bunch of other things that have been deferred on the house and cars, and admittedly a couple of those days have been just inertia – and trying to figure out the best way to deal with the aileron/bracket interference. I did tell him it would take 2-3 years to get to the point where I was ready to take it to the airport for assembly, but being told that and actually seeing the impact are two different things, of course.

At this point I’ll build a movable wing storage rack for the two lower wings, and move them to the hangar at Millard as soon as I have the left wing varnished. Those wings can live there while I figure out my next move. My garage is not currently in a state suitable for building. It’s too cold in winter to work with epoxy, and unbearably hot for much of the summer. It was workable for aluminum construction on the RV-7, but the epoxy used for this plane is less tolerant of temperature extremes while working on assembly. I’ve been planning to install a mini split heat pump in there for heat and A/C; I think I’ll move ahead with that.

Tail surfaces can be built on a single 4 x 8′ sheet of MDF. I think I can free up enough space in the garage for that, and once done they can hang on a wall either at home or at the hangar. I need to review the fuselage plans to see how much workbench I’ll need for that — with any luck, a 2 x 16′ bench would do, so maybe I can just split the 4 x 8 down the center and make a single long bench for the fuselage. The upper wings will be the challenge. I really need at least 11 x 4′, so I just need to do some planning.

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A little varnish

Picked up a gallon can of Varathane Ultimate Spar Urethane this afternoon. A gallon can is about the same price as two one-quart cans, and I figure between the wings, fuselage, and tail I’ll probably use most of it. I gave the holes for the bushings and the wood where they will go a coat this afternoon before heading home — it was a busy day cleaning out the garage and ferrying grandkids around. Tomorrow I’ll pick up some primer and hopefully get a start on varnishing the rest of the wing. I’d like to have it assembled and ready to rack by the weekend, if I can. Then I’ll need to pull down the left wing and finish it up – bushings, varnish, brackets.

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Boy, I’m bushed!

Today I took the wing brackets over to the shop, sorted them all out, and re-marked them so I could tell one part from the other. There are seven (I think) different bracket types. The acid etch solution had removed all of the markings, along with other stuff.

I sorted out which brackets are needed for the right lower wing that’s on the bench, and checked all of the bolt sizes for proper fit. All are acceptable, if not perfect. I have AN4-24A bolts (1-15/16″ grip length) for the main spar root attachment brackets; I could have used AN4-23A (1-13/16″ grip length). It’s not a problem; a couple of AN960 washers do the trick and are a perfectly acceptable solution. On the rear spar N-strut (outer end) brackets, the AN4-16A bolts are a tad long; I could have used -15A. Two AN960 and one AN960L are fine. As a mental exercise I calculated the weight savings if I ordered the shorter bolts. The shorter bolts would weigh about half an ounce less (total per wing); the washers would bring that up to just a smidge over half an ounce — .53 ounce, or about 15 grams per wing. I can live with that.

But I digress. I got all the remaining bushings cut. Once I wrapped my head around that fact that the bushings do not need to be cosmetically and dimensionally perfect, but just need to be “flush or slightly below” the face of the wood per the plans, things went a little quicker. I pulled the 24 tooth per inch metal blade from my bandsaw and replaced it with a 10 TPI wood blade, which is fine for thin wall AL tubing like this. I set up the miter gauge and fence for the length I wanted. The tubing cut-off end was snagging the blade teeth; Stew suggested a spacer on the rip fence that extends just shy of the blade. That did the trick! Now the cut-offs roll out of the way. I cut one piece and tested for fit in the hole; once that was verified I was able to set the fence once and cut as many pieces of each diameter tube as I needed. Easy peasy. That will save hours of build time.

Now I need some etching primer for the brackets, and spar urethane for the wood, and I can get everything installed and call this wing done.

Oh, after I cut the bracket for the aileron connecting rod.

And get the bearing block holes drilled.

And… whatever else I’ve forgotten.

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Finishing out the aileron bay

Last session I cut and sanded everything to get the top of the aileron bay closed out. Well, not everything; after gluing in the CW37 piece I realized that there were some additional supports I hadn’t cut. As I was running short on time, though, I had to leave them for another day.

The fun part (and it actually was kind of fun) was cutting notches in CW37 for the ends of the rib caps. After marking the location of both sides of each rib. I cut a shallow slot with he razor saw, then used an X-Acto knife to gradually fit the depth of the notch to fit. In the end I got it in and clamped, then had to leave.

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A few more false ribs

I glued up two more last night, and will do two more tonight. That will make 18 down, with 20 19 more to go. I’ll typically take some time at lunch to cut out the cross brace pieces and get everything set up. Then after work I’ll mix up some T88 and glue the ribs up, then let the glue cure overnight. By the next morning I can pull them out of the jigs and start again.

I’ve run out of cross-brace stock that’s been sanded down to 3/32″, so I’ll have to stop while I retrieve the small shop vacuum from the project house where it is now and run some more 1/8″ stock through the drum sander. It’s a pain, yes, but it has to be done.

I’m already debating where to go from here, once all of the false ribs are finished in a few weeks (maybe). I could start on the tail, but that will require a 4 x 8 work surface. The wing spars will require a longer bench, at least 12′ long. I may instead start working on cutting out the large number of nose ribs that will be needed, and the other high volume plywood parts. It’s awfully tempting to set up my CNC router again for that part, but I doubt that I will. I’d have to translate the outline from the printed plans into G-code for the router, and quite frankly I think by the time I got that right I could cut them all out by hand. I’ve seen a couple of guys use a router and a flush cutter to route the nose ribs from a pattern. I’m a little concerned about the radius on the inside corners where the nose rib glues to the false spar. I figure I could either sand a matching radius there, or touch up the corners of the nose ribs with a bandsaw or something. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

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Spar web update

For anyone else who might be in the same predicament, the fine folks at Homebuilt Airplanes came up with a couple more sources. B&D International carries 5′ x 5′ sheets of Finnish birch aircraft plywood, and will cut and ship UPS. Boulter doesn’t carry as wide a variety, but might be good if you’re closer to the east coast than the west.

The price at B&D is higher than Aircraft Spruce. If you price it by the square foot, it’s not terribly higher. 13%, on the 1/8″ sheet I need. Not terrible.

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Spar webs

The plans and BOM call for plywood spar webs, cross-cut, 60″ long. The webs are butt-spliced mid-wing, with what seem to me to be fairly narrow blocks of spruce on either side.

Problem is, you can’t buy 60″ wide sheets of aircraft plywood in the US. Aircraft Spruce has ONE size, and not a size I need. Everything else I’ve found is in 48″ wide sheets. And since the web needs to be crosscut, it’s not as simple as just buying a 4′ x 8′ sheet. I’ve contacted Fisher Flying Products as well as another supplier in Canada. Fisher’s tab will be roughly $340, the other place was pretty reasonable for the plywood but wanted over $500 for crating and shipping. To put that in perspective, ACS will sell me the plywood I need for about $100, delivered.

The question is, can I make 48″ long spar webs work in a way that is at least as good, or preferably stonger and better, than the original design? I am no engineer. Especially a mechanical engineer. I’m certainly not qualified to make such a call. Fortunately, I have someone local who is an engineer, and is qualified to help make that decision and recommend another way to do it — if there is one. I’ll be taking the wing plans to the February EAA chapter meeting to go over them with him and see what we can figure out.

If that doesn’t work out, Spruce does sell 5/32 ply in 61″ x 61″ sheets. The spar webs are specified as 1/8″ for the main spar, and 1/16″ for the rear spar. I could just make both webs 5/32 with a slight weight penalty. The plywood would weigh 3 to 5 pounds more, but I’d probably also need to trim 1/32 to 3/32 from the spruce stiffeners, so that might make up for some of it. Again, I’ll need to consult with a real engineer to see if that wold work or not. Ending up with a plane that’s a couple pounds heavier but significantly stronger is OK. Ending up with a plane that is in any way less strong or less safe is absolutely not. And if the ribs need to be modified a little to clear a beefier spar — I’m OK with that.

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Tempus fugit

Another year draws quickly to a close, with what feels like not a lot of progress on this project. I have a tall stack of ribs, but really nothing else. I had hoped to have a good start on the tail surfaces by now, but haven’t even started on them. We’ll need the basement for a family Christmas party, so no laying a 4×8 sheet of MDF over the island down there to start laminating pine. No worries, though. I have located some nice clear pine boards at Menard’s that will rip down nicely into 10′ long lamination strips. I have an order of Finnish birch ply queued up on Aircraft Spruce’s web site, ready to place the order once I’m sure I have all the stuff on there that’s going to be expensive to ship. As soon as we’re finished with the post-party cleanup, I’ll have the basement available to work in through the rest of the winter since the garage will just be a bit too cold for epoxy.

I also got a great idea from one of the guys on the Biplane Forum. I’ve been pondering how to store the wing ribs. I think I’ll build short pieces of main and rear spars out of pine and non-certified plywood, just to assemble all the ribs and clamp them together. That way I can surface sand them all together, and maybe if I’m lucky use that assembly to run them through the table saw for trimming as well. Maybe.

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Musing.

Haven’t done much in the past few days, mostly because I’ve had the workbench cleared off to fix a recalcitrant robot vacuum.  I did unroll some of the plans and take a good long look at the tail surface sheet.  Sixteen feet or so of paper, mind you…  not the easiest thing to manage on a 6′ countertop!  I wish that had been split into two sheets. 

It looks like I can build the entire fin and rudder out of pine and plywood, so that’s my next project, I think.  I’ll go look for a suitable 10′ length of pine at Menard’s that can be ripped down into decent quality lamination strips.  Once the saw is set up for that I’ll make as many as I can, since I’ll have a bunch of other laminations to do as well for the wingtips and fuelage.  Then I’ll look at what to do for the elevator and stabilizer spars.