January 27, 2007


After a run to Home Depot and Hobby Lobby (clamps, sandpaper & an angle measuring widget) I got started on trying to get the drive horn bent to the appropriate 5.2 degrees.  I started with a rubber mallet and this toy bench vise I had in the toolbox.  Yeah right - all that accomplished was marking up the mallet.



The next idea I had was clamp the horn to the bench and bend it down.  I didn't get a picture during and after bending, but this method worked great.  I clamped a 2x4 on the end of it for leverage - a bit of my 200+ lbs pushing down and it was at 5.2 degreesish.



Next I got into the formed AL box to get a peice of angle to make the angle that fills the space beween the tip and rear rib on the horn.  Don't mind the clutter on the bench.  I've really got to come up with a bigger work table - I'm just not sure what to do with all the stuff in the pallet so I can make it into a table.

   


A couple of snips with the aviation snips and here's the SNX-T14-06 angle.  Full size prints are nice to have to verify the parts I'm making are the correct size.



Here's the rudder horn with the tip rib, angle and back rib layed out how it is supposed to be assembled.  The preformed ribs are great - debur and assemble.



I clamped the tip rib to the drive horn and marked the locations for the rivet holes.  I didn't get a shot of drilling, but after I marked the holes with a sharpie, punched them with a spring loaded punch and drilled it to #40 on my drill press.  First cleco of the project!!



The drive horn assembly held together with silver clecos.  Its ready to be drilled up to #30.



Partially drilled up to #30.




All the holes drilled to #30.  Ready for deburing and having the scratches polished out.  Its nice having more that one set of cleco pliers.  I got 3 sets used from the Yard Store because I have the terrible habit of setting down tools where I use them and immediately not being able to find them.



FIRST RIVET!!! I'm on my way to an airplane.  The things that look like burs in the other holes are cleco tips.  I pulled this one with a heavy duty hand puller.  I am going to by the HF pneumatic puller, but I have to come up with a compressor first.  I want a nice 60gallon one, but I just don't have the space for it at the moment.  I'm thinking about getting a pancake type - if it can run a nail gun why couldn't it run a puller?  I may only get a few pulls between compressor runs, but I can live with that.




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