Archive for category Preparation
Started Building Wing Stands (3/13/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Preparation, Wings, Workshop on March 14, 2010
1.0 Hours -
With the empennage done (essentially) and the wings on order, I decided to start building my wing stands even though it will be several months before I need them. Searching the internet, I found many different designs. However, I needed a stand that would not need to be bolted/screwed into the ceiling or floor of the garage as our landlord probably wouldn’t be too happy about that! I also didn’t want to go too overboard on the design since this is only a construction stand…not a jig. In the end, I morphed a couple of designs together. While I would like to say it is unique, I’m sure someone else has built the exact stand in the past. Below is a drawing I made in Google Sketchup. If anyone wants the actual Sketchup file with dimensions, leave a comment and I’ll email it too you.
This is a drawing of my wingstand that I did in Google Sketchup. I'll make four of these.
The base of the stand is 3/4” plywood, while the column is made by gluing and screwing two 2”x6”x60” planks together. Additional column supports are made out of 2×4 sections and plywood or MDF triangles. The bracket that holds the wing spar will be made out of a section of aluminum angle. I’ll probably just reuse the angle that I used to make the rudder trailing edge. The angle will be supported by a threaded rod (not drawn into the picture) that will join the angle to the column. The rod will be adjustable so that the angle can be leveled. Two stands will be needed for each wing. While I’m not sure if I will build the wings simultaneously or one at a time, I’m building a total of 4 stands.
Today, I got as far as cutting the bases and planks to size. I also glued and screwed the columns together.
The wing stand columns are made out of a 2"x6"x10' that is cut in half, then glued and screwed together.
The grain is lined up so that any warping should be opposite on each board...supposedly this will keep them straight.
It's not attached to the plyboard yet, but it looks like a wing stand.
Ideal Stripmaster
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Preparation, Tools on February 28, 2010
I’ve added another new tool to my arsenal…a wire stripper for small gauge wire.
There aren't many tools that can easily strip 26 gauge wire (thanks for that Ray Allen), but the Stripmaster makes nice work of it.
The Ray Allen Company manufactures the servos used in Van’s electric trim systems. For some reason, Ray Allen has chosen to use extremely small 26 gauge wire on all of their components. The problem is that most strippers won’t strip wires this small. However, the Ideal Stripmaster model (45-097) handles them with ease. Most stores sell them for $39-$49. I purchased a new one off Ebay for $29 including shipping.
Now I’m on the prowl for a deal on a good d-sub crimp tool
Wing Kit Ordered (2/21/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Preparation, Wings on February 21, 2010
Today, I sent off an order form (and large deposit) for a wing kit. The Van’s website currently lists a 12-14 week wait for new wing orders. This should give me plenty of time to wrap up the empennage and study the plans for the wings. I also need to start thinking about building a wing stand. Since the RV-7 kit is pre-punched, the stand is really just a stand to hold the wings during construction…it is not a jig.
Now, back to the garage. I have a trim tab that needs to be finished.
Left Elevator Continued (1/31/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Elevators, Empennage, Tools on January 31, 2010
1.0 Hours -
Once again, my time to work on the plane was limited by other things that needed to get done. While I did have to go to work and do some necessity shopping (can’t build an airplane on an empty stomach), I have to admit that I was being a little lazy and just wanted to veg in front of the TV a bit too.
My 1.0 hours of project time was well spent though. I finished drilling the left elevator skin to the skeleton, disassembled the elevator, and started working to deburr and dimple all the parts. No pictures of this as it is essentially the same as the right elevator (and numerous other pictures I’ve posted about deburring, edge finishing, and dimpling). This should keep me busy for another couple of days as well.
On another note, I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at other build sites to see how people handled the bends on the elevator skin tabs and the trim tab ends. Some people construct a wood bending block per the Van’s instructions and have no issues. However, a lot of people cut the tabs off and make riblets instead. In anticipation of struggling with this, I bought a cheap Harbor Freight bending brake. Even if I’m able to bend the tabs per plans and forgo the riblets, this tool will easily justify it’s $35 price tag. Just bending a small piece of scrap aluminum was kind of fun (yes, I’m easily entertained!
I bought this bending brake in anticipation of making riblets for the left elevator and trim tab.
New Tools and Some Workshop Organization (1/10/10)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Empennage, Tools, Workshop on January 11, 2010
After working on the plane Saturday, the workshop was in a bit of a disastrous state. This, combined with my desire to find a better storage solution for my completed empennage sub-assemblies, gave me an excuse to make a trip to Lowes and then head into the garage for a little over an hour.
The 5 empennage sub-assemblies are fairly large and difficult to store. Remember, you build these and then set them aside until you are ready to attach them to the fuselage.
The horizontal stabilizer is, by far, the largest of the pieces measuring in at over 8 feet long. However, it is also the easiest to store. It is hanging from a bike rack mounted to the garage wall. The rack is solid and it keeps the piece off the floor and out of the way.
The remaining parts still in need of a storage solution are the vertical stabilizer, rudder, and two elevators (of which I’ve finished the vertical stabilizer and rudder). For these, I decided to make a four-slot rack (somewhat resembling a bike rack) out of PVC. I chose PVC because it is strong, very easy to work with, and I had about 30 feet of 3/4” pipe on hand. After quickly sketching my design, I ran to Lowes to pick up all the necessary fittings. Forty-five minutes after returning, I had my rack assembled.
I built a rack out of PVC to store my empennage parts.
Top view of empennage rack.
Next, a little workshop clean-up. All tools stored properly and tables cleaned (ok, tables cleared off using some high pressure air!). I also started to clean the clecos that were used to glue the rudder. These came out fairly clean thanks to the Boelube coating I gave them, but they still had a fair amount of tank sealant on them. I decided to soak them in some acetone overnight and see what happens. If I ruin the twenty or so clecos, no big loss.
Finally, I have bought a couple more new tools recently. From Brown Tool, I purchased #6 and #10 Screw Dimple Die Sets and another flush squeeze set so that I would have two flush squeezes with the larger diameter face. From Avery Tools, I bought an “Oops Hole Saver Rivet Kit.” This kit contains 6 different sizes of NAS1097 rivets. The NAS1097 rivets, also known as “oops rivets” or “hole saver rivets,” have a factory head one size smaller than what you would normally find on that size shaft. For example, a NAS1097AD4-3.5 has the shaft diameter of a 4- rivet, but the head size of a 3- rivet. They can be used in holes where you had to drill the hole larger but want to keep the head size the same as other rivets in that area, or, they can be used for nutplate installation. On nutplate installation, using a smaller head allows you to countersink the aluminum sheet rather than dimple it. Dimpling the sheet is easy, but dimpling the nutplate is not. The NAS1097’s allow you to avoid this.
From left to right: Male #10 screw dimple die, Female #10 screw dimple die, flush squeeze set, #6 screw male dimple die, #6 screw female dimple die.
Avery's "Oops Hole Saver Rivet Kit" contains NAS1097 rivets of various sizes.
New Workshop (12/28/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Preparation, Workshop on December 28, 2009
It has been almost twenty days since my last post. I haven’t given up on the RV build, I’ve just been moving to a new house. While moving, in itself, is never fun. This move has its advantages. We are now in a house instead of an apartment, there’s a nice yard for the dogs, I’m a little closer to work and, the biggest benefit, I now have a 2-car airplane factory!
My previous apartment had a small one car garage which would have been sufficient for building the empennage and wings, but starting the fuse would mean moving to a hangar and paying rent there. Now, I probably have enough room to completely build the fuselage, engine and all, and only move to a hangar when I’m ready to attach the wings. Of course, this means I have to live in this house for 5-15 years!
I’ve attached a few pictures of my new workshop. I’m still fine tuning the setup and it is still a bit of a mess as we have been piling junk in the garage as a staging area for moving it into the house. I have to admit, the extra space is nice.
In a couple of days, I should be ready to get back to building. First thing on the list is to glue the trailing edge of the rudder.
Still some organizing to do.
So much more space than my old garage.
Storing completed sub-assemblies takes some creativity.
Started Rudder Final Assembly (12/3/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder, Tools on December 3, 2009
1.4 Hours -
My order from onlinemetals.com finally arrived yesterday. The two pieces of metal I received were a 5 foot long piece of aluminum angle and a 6×2 inch piece of 3/16” cold rolled steel. The aluminum is for keeping the rudder trailing edge straight, while the steel is for making a combination female dimple tool and thin bucking bar for tight spaces.
To make the dimpling tool, I simply drilled a #40 hole in one corner of the steel and then countersunk it to accept a AN426AD3 rivet head. I then repeated this on the opposite side with a #30 drill for –4 rivets.
I countersunk a piece of thin steel to serve as a female dimple die. #30 on one side, #40 on the other.
Using this was not as easy as I had hoped. You really have to swing hard with the hammer while holding your parts in place. To make a dimple, I placed the rib over the hole in the steel bar, placed a male dimple die through the hole from the top, placed a socket over the male die’s shaft to protect it from the hammer blows, and hit it with a hammer. It would normally take two or three blows before the dimple would be acceptable.
The bucking bar plus male dimple die makes an ok dimple. The socket protects the dimple die shaft from the hammer.
The dimple on the left was squeezed. The one on the right was made with my bucking bar set up...not bad.
Once I finished dimpling all the holes in the ribs that I could not get to with my squeezer, I started final assembly of the rudder skeleton. I started by riveting the spar reinforcement plates and nut plates to the spar. Then, I assembled the bottom rib/rudder horn assembly.
One of the rudder reinforcement brackets installed with the nutplate.
Everything was going well until it was time to rivet the rudder brace to the rudder horn. Some builders have been able to find a way to use solid rivets here and squeeze them with their longeron yoke. I couldn’t figure out a way to get my longeron yoke to fit, so I chose to use the optional LP4-3 blind rivets. Unfortunately, when I pulled out my bin of LP4-3 rivets, there were only three left and I needed four.
I went ahead and set the three rivets I had and left the fourth hole with a cleco in it. Fortunately, this won’t hold me up as there is nothing that will block my access to this hole during subsequent construction steps. However, I did stop here for the evening and immediately placed and order for LP4-3 rivets and some fuel tank sealant from Van’s.
The rudder horn, reinforcement plate, spare, rib assembly
I ran out of LP4-3 rivets for attaching the rudder brace. I'll order more from Van's tonight.
Two More New Tools
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Preparation, Tools on November 13, 2009
Today, I gained two more tools. One was purchased, the other was made. There’s something rewarding about making your own tool too.
I’m going to need a back riveting plate soon, and I didn’t want to pay $50 for one from the aviation tool vendors. While theirs are nice, they are small and not worth the price. The simple solution was to find a slab of steel that I could polish. When I started to research this a bit, I found out that cold rolled steel has a smooth, almost polished surface when it is milled. I found some of this steel at Home Depot and it is indeed smooth, but they didn’t have a piece thick enough to server as a back rivet plate.
After a little more searching, I found an on-line metal retailer, conveniently called OnlineMetals.com, based out of Washington. They sell just about any type of metal you could possibly want! I purchased a piece of cold rolled steel measuring 0.375” thick, 4” wide and 24” long for $35 including shipping. The piece of steel is perfectly smooth and will require no finishing on my part prior to using it as a back rivet plate.
A slab of cold rolled steel will serve as my back rivet plate. This plate measures 0.375"x4"x24" and is nice and smooth.
The back rivet plate 0.375" thick. For reference, the table top is 3/4" plywood.
The second tool, the one I made, is a rod end bearing installation/adjustment tool that will be need to install rod end bearings in the control surfaces. I followed a basic design I found on-line using PVC. Basically, it is just a few pieces of 1/2” PVC, at coupler and a tee. One piece of PVC gets some slots cut into it so that it can hold the bearing. The coupler covers the slots and holds the bearing in place. All together, it cost under $10.
A homemade rod end bearing tool...and a rod end bearing.
The business end of the rod end bearing tool.
The rod end bearing fits nicely into the groves.
New Tools (sort of)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Preparation, Tools, Workshop on November 5, 2009
I’ve accumulated a few new tools and other shop stuff since my big tool posting on 9/2/09. I’ve written about a couple tool purchases (torque wrench, pneumatic squeezer), but I’ve come to realize that it is the small stuff you need to know about when getting ready to start your build. So, since I’ve been taking a couple days off from building due to a sore back, here’s an update:
Upper Cabinet for Tool Chest – I bought the upper cabinet for my tool chest early on and I’m glad I did. The tool chest went from practically empty to pretty darn full in a couple of months. If you can afford a bigger chest, go for it. I couldn’t be happier with this Pro-Works chest from Wal-Mart.
The Pro-Works tool chest is great!
Hardware Cabinets – The kits come with a lot of little bags full of rivets and other hardware. To keep all of it organized and quickly accessible, you need some sort of cabinet with a lot of drawers or bins. These are from Lowes and were about $15 each.
Some sort of organization system is essential for all those rivets!
Label Maker – I bought this Brother Label maker from Costco. The labels look great and are quick to make and apply. Eventually, I’ll get some clear label tape and this labeler will even be used to label my panel.
Brother P-Touch labelers are cheap but good.
#21 drill bits – The only #21 drill I had was a threaded drill for my angle attachment. The angle attachment is a pain to use, so I bought some regular old #21s.
#21 Drill
Pop Rivet Dimpler – I thought I was going to need this handy little dimpler for the horizontal stabilizer skins, but I figured out how dimple the holes near the leading edge with my C-frame. however, I know this will still come in handy and I’ll probably have to get the larger size as well. To use this, you just squeeze the pieces together by pulling on the nail with a pop-rivet gun…simple!
A pop rivet dimpler allows you to dimple in tight quarters.
Avery Deburr Tool – I didn’t like the multi-burr tool, that came with my tool kit, for deburring small holes. This one from Avery is much easier to use on all those rivet holes.
Avery Speed Deburr
Hand Seamer – When prepping the ribs, you have to make sure the flange is perpendicular to the webbing. A hand seamer makes this simple. It’s basically a hand operated sheet metal brake.
A hand seamer is just a small sheet metal brake.
Scotch-Brite Pads – The maroon pads are great for scuffing the surface before priming or even a little light deburring. Each pad is about the size of a letter sized piece of paper. I bought one at my local NAPA and cut it into 2×2 squares.
Mandrel to Mount 6” Scotch-Brite Wheel in Drill Press – Rather than buying a grinder, I bought a steel mandrel from Avery which allows me to chuck my Scotch-Brite wheel into my drill press. The advantage is the slower speed of the drill press compared to a grinder. I’m not sure if having the wheel horizontal is any easier than having it vertical in a grinder.
Mounting the Scotch-Brite wheel in the drill press allows it to spin at a slower speed than in most grinders.
Vise – Nothing fancy…a four inch vise from Harbor Freight. This is essential for holding pieces while bending.
A vise is an essential tool.
Respirator – MEK and primer, while supposedly not carcinogens, smell nasty. A simple charcoal filter respirator eliminates the odor.
A must when working with MEK and primers.
Countersink Cage – I bought a second countersink cage so that I could set one up with a #40 countersink and one with a #30 and hopefully not have to change them very often. Set it and forget it!
Having two countersink cages allows me to set each up with a different bit and leave them.
Starting To Rivet the Left Horizontal Stabilizer Skin (10/31/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Horizontal Stabilizer, Tools on October 31, 2009
2.5 Hours -
My new torque wrench arrived in the mail today, so the first thing I did was torque the bolts holding the HS-411PP center bearing to the rear spar. The plans recommend 20-25 inch pounds of torque for these bolts, so I set them to 25 and marked them with some “torque seal.” Ok, my “torque seal” is actually some nail polish that my girlfriend bought for me earlier in the day and I went a little overboard with it. Keep in mind, this was my first endeavor into nail polish use!
My new beam style torque wrench from Park Tools.
"Torque seal" (aka nail polish) on the center bearing bolts.
My girlfriend "torque sealed" her toes.
Next, I continued my work on the left HS by riveting the bottom of HS-707 to the skin. You can use solid rivets or blind rivets here. I couldn’t figure out a good way to buck rivets in this confined space, so I decided to just go with blind rivets. I’ll try to avoid using any blind rivets on the tops, but on the bottoms, where no one will see them, I decided the blind rivets would be a better choice than trying to buck and doing a horrible job.
I chose to blind rivet the bottom side of the HS-707 rib.
Three blind rivets were also used to connect HS-707 and HS-708 to the front spar. These were also a little tricky to place thanks to the confined quarters created by the skin.
Blind rivets attaching the left HS-702 to HS-707 and HS-708.
Assembly of the left HS continued by riveting the outboard most rib, HS-706, to the front spar. Using two universal head rivets.
Finally, I started to rivet the left skin to the front spar. The small flush rivets used to attached the skin are relatively easy to set, but getting the bucking bar into place was, once again, a challenge. I spent a good thirty minutes trying to develop a plan of attack. Eventually, I started to buck rivets and set all the rivets attaching the skin to the bottom of the HS-702 front spar before calling it a day.
Bucking rivets is a slow process, but I'm happy with the results so far.
Tomorrow, my Dad is coming over to lend a hand again, and I think we will be able to finish up the HS!
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