3.7 Hours -
My Dad came over today to help with the airplane for the first time. Fortunately, there was a lot to do. Unfortunately, it was all deburring and dimpling, so he got a taste of the tedium involved with building an airplane.
All of the holes in the HS needed to be deburred, as well as the edges of all pieces except the ribs and reinforcements. I gave my Dad a quick lesson on how to deburr holes and let him at it. After he finished a small rib, I checked his work. The holes were deburred and no extra materials were removed, so I let him run with it while I worked on deburring the edges. Usually, while I’m working, I listen to aviation themed podcasts on my IPod. It was a nice change to have someone to talk to.
My Dad's job for the day was to deburr the holes in the HS skeleton.
I finished deburring all the edges, except for those on the skins, before deciding to switch tasks and dimple the HS skeleton with my new-to-me pneumatic squeezer. Using the pneumatic squeezer, I could dimple a rib in less than half the time it took me with my hand squeezer. I think the squeezer could be my new favorite tool!
Dimpling with the pneumatic squeezer...so simple!
First dimples squeezed using a pneumatic squeezer.
Once my dimpling caught up to my Dad’s deburring, I sat the squeezer aside and started to remove the vinyl coating from the HS skins. I’m going to only remove strips of vinyl along the rivet lines. Since I’m planning to leave the majority of the airplane unpainted, I want to protect the skins as much as possible from scratches during construction.
Using a soldering iron and straight edge, I quickly melted lines in the vinyl and then easily peeled off the strips. Whoever came up with this little trick was one smart dude.
Lines in the protective vinyl are made with a soldering iron.
Left: Once lines are cut with the soldering iron, nice strips can be easily removed. Right: My Dad still deburring away.
As I finished removing the vinyl strips from the two skins, my Dad finished his deburring task and we decided it was time for a lunch break. My Dad, my girlfriend and I all walked over to Gourmet Burger Grill for burgers, sweet potato fries and onion rings. If you are in the San Antonio area and you haven’t been there yet, you are seriously missing out!
After lunch, my Dad headed back to Kerrville and I headed back into the garage. Before leaving the airplane for the day, I wanted to finish dimpling the skeleton and prime the front and rear spars. With this done, I still need to prime the ribs, as well as deburr, dimple and prime the skins. However, with the spar pieces all primed, I’m ready to rivet together the rear spar tomorrow. Yes, I’ll be using my pneumatic squeezer for that too!
