Way too hot in the garage

It has been really hot and humid here the last few days. It has kept me out of the garage. On Tuesday a friend of mine Mike P. in Minneapolis (he is building a Buttercup) sent me a message

"Hey Kent

Wanted to know if it was hot enough for you and if you were out in the garage "sweatin to the oldies?""

He wanted to rub it in that he has an A/C unit in his garage.

Guess it is time to keep up with the Jones'! I need to look for a window A/C unit for the garage.

Since I was finished with all of the welding on the main structure of the fuselage, I wanted to double check to see how straight everything came out. So I ran some lines down the outside of the fuselage (3" out from the front and 17.5" out from the rear) and one straight down the middle of the fuselage to take some measurements. So after all of the welding that takes place and anyone that has welded steel before knows, steel can move around a lot during welding. I ended up pretty lucky as I had taken some time to try my best to make sure everything stayed square, it only came out to be 1/32" off from nose to tail. (which to straighten this out it would require moving to one side 1/64"). So all in all at this point so far I am really happy.

Tube Structure For Top of Cabin Area

I spent yesterday 6-12-10 adding the structure to the top of the fuselage in the cabin area. I also built the area at station 48 which is right behind the seats and holds several items for the controls. For the top of the cabin area I clamped a piece of plywood in and drew the correct dimensions in. Next I cut the tubing to fit the area and tack welded everything in. Then final welded the pieces in place. I am awaiting the tubing for the landing gear mount to arrive. I should arrive by Thursday this week. So likely not much progress until then.

Main Gear and Tail Spring

Well I was lucky enough to have found a used set of gear from a Tailwind that the previous owner disassembled to sell for parts (can't figure out why he would do that). But I got a great deal on them. They need some cleaning up which is to be expected for what I paid for them. I was also lucky enough to have found a tail spring from Red Hamilton for a Tailwind. I also got a great deal on this and have already cleaned it up. I will post a picture of the tail spring later (camera batteries went dead). Anyway if I were to have bought these from Harmon Lang they would have set me back around $700-$800 for all of them, I was able to scrounge these parts for a little less than $275 total. The mains also came with some really strange brakes on them that I don't plan on using any further than just around the garage to be able to roll it around for moving it. I will replace these later with either Grove or Cleveland wheels and brakes.

Rotisserie and adjustable stool

So some of the other things that I have built to aid in welding and just working on the airplane in general are a rotisserie and an adjustable stool. The stool is built out of a jackscrew from an old office chair, 3 nuts that fit the jackscrew, 1/2" steel rod, and wood for the seat. The stool is really nice as I can adjust it up and down from about the height of a milk crate to a little taller than a regular chair. The rotisserie for the front and rear of the airplane also help tremendously because I can just rotate the airframe to any position that I want it at to make it a little more convenient for welding. I wanted to make sure that the rotisserie would be adjustable in height and that the main supports that mount to the airframe were all adjustable. I wanted this because an airframe will not balance simply on the centerline or what would be dead center of the firewall, and I wanted to be able to get the airframe at the proper height to allow it rotate all of the way around 360*. The other nice thing about adjust-ability is that later I will be able to use these on the wings when I fiberglass and paint them.

Still Welding

Like I said before in a previous post "Daunting Task of Welding Everything". I looked on the timer on my welder today 6/10/10 and I have 31 hours on the machine right now. This does include some practice welding and helping my wife's cousin with some welding he needed done but that maybe all added up to about 1 to 2 hours. Man this is taking a long time to weld everything. I think it would go faster if it were not for sitting back, drinking a soda, and admiring what is happening. I had planned on welding the fuselage with Oxy Acetylene but went ahead and bought a Miller Syncrowave 200 TIG machine to do the welding. I am glad that I did since it would have taken me at least twice as long to get this thing welded up. At first I didn't like welding the joints, especially the inside ones, because everything is at such an odd angle. I have since figured things out a little better and am really enjoying welding things up. There are a few more tubes to go in to complete the fuselage structure then I can start working on the main landing gear mount and tailwheel mount. This will be a milestone in the project as it will be sitting on the gear.

Everything Is Tacked Together

So once I got the sides completed I put in all of the diagonals making sure that everything was square when they went in. Once all of the diagonals were in I had to cut 2x4 pieces to go in between each station to slightly bow the longerons out slightly (somewhere around 1/2"). This helps to keep the longerons from bowing in from welding and will also make the longeron lines straight later down the road when I go to cover the fuselage (the polyester/ceconite/stitts/what ever you want to call it, can really move things around.) Then I started the daunting task of welding everything. The process started at the rear most station welding the outside straight welds a little at a time at each joint. I worked around each station on just the flat welds trying my best to balance the welds to avoid anything moving out of square. It helps to lock in each station by doing this and things will stay square.

Random pictures

I talked about the digital protractor in the other post. I didn't add any photos of it but thought that I should so it could be seen what I was talking about. I also didn't show any of the tube intersections and thought that I should. So here are a few of the photos of each.

Time to work on the diagonals

So after all the cross tubes were fitted and tacked in place it was time to start working on the diagonal tubes. During this step it is very important to make sure that each station is square by measuring diagonally at each station and making adjustments with a bar or pipe clamp or ratchet strap to get them exactly the same. I started at station 78 and worked back from the tail squaring one station at a time until I got to the tail. I did the bottom first then the top and then moved to the next station. When you put in the diagonal tube at each station it locks it where it is at. That is why it is very important to make sure it is exactly square. After I was done with the top and bottom of all of the stations I went back starting at station 78 and started fitting and locking in each diagonal that goes from the top longeron to the bottom longeron, measuring, adjusting and squaring as I went towards the tail. I got all of them fitted, squared and tacked in today. It is amazing how rigid the frame is when it is just tacked together. Tomorrow I have to go to Discount Steel or Garelick Steel to pick up some tubing to put together a fuselage rotisserie to make it easier to rotate the fuselage for welding. I also have to pick up some 2 x 4 's to place in between each station to slightly bow out the upper and lower longerons before welding.

Fuselage sides done

After lots of cutting and fitting the tubes the both sides were done. I laid the two sides together and squared them up to each other ensuring that they were in line with each other and tacked them together where the tailpost will eventually go. Then I was able to spread the two sides apart at the front to start fitting the tubes for what will be the cabin area. Since I am building my Tailwind with Jim Clement's mods I also had to build the rear spar carry through for placement in the cabin area. I fit the bottom tube for the rear of the cabin area first then the rear spar carry through at the top of the cabin area making sure to keep the dimensions correct according the the plans and the suggestions from Jim Stanton. Jim Stanton has a set of corrections for the Aircraft Spruce plans and the measurements differ slightly and can cause some problems if these are not adjusted. Then I put in the front cabin tubes at the bottom first followed by the front spar carry through tube at the top front of the cabin. I also used a digital protractor that I picked up from Sears to ensure that all the tubes were level. I was able to get all of them within .1 of a degree. This is far more accurate than most people since it is my understanding that they use a regular bubble level which would have a variance of around .5 or .6 of a degree. Then I started working my way back to the tail installing the cross tubes.

Fuselage layout

So the tubing arrived and it was necessary to make a jig to build the fuselage sides. I got two 4 x 8 sheets of OSB and two 1 x 4 's to make the jig blocks. I cut the 1 x 4's up into 1' blocks and drilled them to keep them from splitting. I then layed out the center/thrust line on the two sheets of OSB that will be my jig board. Off of that I measured for the placement of all the center lines for the tubing. I made some blocks that were the correct size for each different size tube that will make up the fuselage sides and centered these on the lines that I drew on the board and attached the blocks so there would be the correct distance from the center line of each tube. Then I finally got to start cutting up the tubing that came.

Steel Tubing is here

It has been a really long time since I have posted. Winter has really slowed down my desire to get outside in the garage and do any work on the project. The wings are still in the condition they were in the last post and will most likely not make any further progress until the fuselage is built. It is Jim Clements recommendation that you hold off building the root rib for the wings until the fuselage is built so that you can make them a smooth transition between the two.

So I ordered my tubing from Dillsburg Aeroplane Works and the tubing made it to my house today. I recommend Dillsburg for ordering your tubing as they are much cheaper than anyone else and really provides a good service. Charlie is a little cantankerous but overall is a really good guy. They are very old school there, they don't have a website or anything, you simply fax what you need (make sure to put exactly what you want!) and they return you a fax with pricing. Then you just fax the order back with shipping address and follow that with a call with your credit card.

So like I said the tubing arrived at my house today. I unpacked the tubing, wiped each tube down, inventoried it, labeled it, and placed it in the rack on the ceiling that I constructed last November.

So look for more posting now that I have something to start doing.