February 10, 2007


First thing today is cutting and bending some 2"x2" angle into clips for the rear spar.

I hadn't opened the AL angle bundle until today - out of the whole kit I'd have to say this is the part that has the least amount of thought put into shipping it.  It is wrapped with plastic and banded to the pallet.  Conway did me a favor by roughing it up - not unusable by any strech, but it will require some cleanup.

Here's a 48" piece of 2"x2".



Here's where it overlapped the end of another peice of angle.  There's no protection between the pieces.



The mill finish is a bit rough - it will require some sanding/polishing.  



This is from Conway - who knows what kind of freight they scraped on it.



This is one of the 96" pieces.  Its hard to see, but the corner all the way down is pretty banged up.



Enough complaining - here's how I made the initial cut.  The woodsaw that came with the miter box dosen't work so well, but a hacksaw does.



This will become the clips for the ribs on the borizontal stabilizer.



It leaves a nice straight cut.



Here's the cut line to make it into two brackets.



And after cutting it in half on the bandsaw.  This blade cuts this heavy AL like it was butter.



Here's what I have to do with it - one leg has to be bent in 10 degrees.



Here the edges have been chamfered as called out in the plans.  Don't do this before bending like me - the chamfered edge tries to bend first.  I think I read that somewhere on the yahoo groups, but I don't remember.  Live and learn.



The other side.  Now that I understand where these parts go I would only chamfer one side and make a left and a right.  The angle is chamfered on both sides in the drawings so they are interchangeable.



Here's how I bent the angle without bending the chamfered side.  Yes, this little toy vice bends the angle fine.  I'll probably need a bigger one later, but it'll do for the time being.



Here's the nice 10 degree bend.  



After bending the pilot holes need to be drilled.  I've marked them here and I'll punch them before drilling.



The angle with the pilot holes drilled.



Here's the cut channel that will become the rear spar channels.  I cut it using the miterbox and wood saw.  The lines near the edges are from the protective plastic.



The channels clamped into position.  I've already cut and bent the ends.



Here's the rear spar clecoed to the channels.  



A closeup shot of how I put the channels in the right place.  The measurement is given from the end of the channel to the center of the mounting hole.  I marked the channel and the spar and clamped the parts together.  Then I measured the end to end dimension and moved the channels accordingly.  They are spaced in the same, its the angle of the camera that make them look different.



Next I drilled all of the holes up to #40 and put clecos in every other hole.



Same shot zoomed out a bit.  The rivet box just happened to be the same as I have the deck height set on the drill press.



All the holes drilled to #40 with clecos in every other hole.  Next I'll drill the open holes to #30.



All the open holes drilled to #30.



Here I'm just having fun with the camera.  This is the rear spar from a clecos perspective.



Dissasembled for deburring.



Deburred and reassembled with #30 clecos.  I put them in every other two holes and put rivets in the open ones.



I can pull 10 rivets before the comressor has to cycle.  



The rear spar riveted.  Gotta love the pneumatic riveter - this took about 10 minutes.



Rear spar from the other side.



Another funky rivet - unlike the first one pulled funny because it was too short, this one just pulled funny.  There is no ball in the rivet, and it didn't pull through.  I'm thinking this one might have been defective.  2nd rivet to drill out.



A different shot - notice the odd shape.  I didn't notice when I pulled it, but I'll bet it pulled quick.





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