Tonight I had the option of preparing a meteorology course for next weekend or producing some aluminum shavings. Needless to say, I chose the aluminum (otherwise you wouldn't read this text) and tapered the two front spar angles:
May 2010 Archives
Tonight I came back late from work, so I didn't do much. But still I wanted to spend some time on the project and started with the front spar. I match drilled the center holes of the HS-810 and HS-814 angles to the spar channels and tapered one side of the HS-814, using a hacksaw for the rough cut and the vixen file for the rest:
Tonight I continued with the HS rear spar. First I finished the second reinforcement bar:
Then the two bars were clecoed to the spar channels and drilled:
I fitted the hinge brackets to the spar assembly and drilled the holes for the HS-708 ribs to #21 (all the rest is #30, the holes for the elevator bearing will be enlarged later):
And finally I match-drilled the elevator bearing assembly:
I want to prime the bearing and to do some touch-up of the holes in the powder coated parts, but I don't have any primer yet. So I will put the work on the rear spar on hold for now and continue with the front spar.
Today I finally started for real. I took the first HS-609PP rear spar reinforcement bar, broke the edges, rounded the ends, fitted it to the spar channels and smoothed it on the Scotch Brite wheel. Here is how it looks compared to the second (unfinished) one:
Two days ago I made some more progress on the aileron training kit. First I made a thin dimple die from a piece of steel and dimpled the four missing holes in the ribs. Then I made a simple jig to clamp everything to the workbench and riveted the skins to the spar. Boy, I'm glad that this is a training kit. I think I drilled out about 1/3 of the rivets out -- some because they were bad, some because they were so-so and I wanted to practice a little more. I also scratched the spar a bit when I slipped with the bucking bar, and the skin when I slipped with the center punch (don't ask).
Squeezing the rivets in the ribs was a breeze, except of course for the rivets closest to the trailing edge (which had to be bucked).
Today I countersunk the wedge for the trailing edge (not deep enough, but hey -- it's a training kit). Riveting the trailing edge was much easier than I thought, and it came out nice and straight:
Also rolling the leading edge went very smooth:
So now I have my first aileron! Well, sort of at least. It was a good idea to start with the training kits. I definitely learned a lot and feel confident to start with the real parts now.
