February 26, 2007


Today I started work on the Vertical Stabilzer.  Three of the parts in this photo are from the kit - the forward spar fitting (bottom left), the main spar aft strap (RH side) and the main spar forward strap (top).  The two squares are .060 al that I've cut for clips.  The forward spar fitting needs to be bent 35 degrees.



The spar channels are cut from .032 channel supplied with the kit.



Both channels for the frame start with 31" channels.  As before, I'm cutting the channel with the miter box and saw.



The saw makes a decent cut - it just needs some filing to clean it up.  I usually start with the teeth just past the line so I have plenty of metal to clean up.



Just a bit of filing requred to clean up the channel.



The two channels for the forward and aft spars.  Each of them are 31" to start with and will be cut to lenght and bent according to the plans.



The next channel that needs to be cut is the tail channel.  The flanges on the channel are bent inward instead of at a right angle.  While looking for the channel (in the wrong box - formed al box 3 dosen't have 48" channel in it) I found my ruddervator pushrods.



Huh?  I thought I was building a Sonex, not a Waiex.  The parts from the formed AL box 3 are ruddervator pushrods, not the long aileron pushrods they should be according to the packing list.  I can imagine it was an easy mistake to make - they are close in length (6" short) and with a quick glance XNS can be read as SNX.  I'll call Sonex and inquire about this.  I imagine they'll want these back.



The formed al box 3 is definately marked Sonex/Dual Stick.  The rest of the channel appears correct.



The tail channel I'm looking for was shipped in formed AL box 1 inside of one of the control surfaces.



And since its kind of a pain to get it down, I'll move on to something else for tonight.  I'll get it out later.



I'm pretty much done for the evening, so I decided to get down the aft wing ribs and check them out.



They're all there - this is the way to build the ribs.  



I was trying for the artistic shot through the rib lightening holes, but it just isn't as cool as when they're attached to the wing spar.



Here's one side of the rib.  Lightening holes cut and flanged - I'm glad I don't have to mess with this.



The other side - the flanges are already fluted to make the rib nice and straight.  The flanges are not predrilled from the factory - they'll have to be match drilled to the skins.  It was not really clear to me if the ribs were going to come predrilled or not, so I was curious about that.  It'd be nice if they did, but not a big deal to match drill it.  Where they attach to the spar is predrilled though.



Factory fluting.  The rib is nice and straight.




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