| 179 | Elevators In Progress | 10/4/2008 |
| | After a long pause on the project, I headed out to the garage to organize it and prepare for work on the elevators. After ripping to slightly oversized dimensions, I planed the pieces to the plans dimensions. The only exception to plans was for the trailing edge of the elevator which I made slightly wider (I added 1/8" to create a dimension of 1 3/8"). I did this to facilitate a more tapered edge and a little more strength in the direction the fabric will be pulling. The extra 1/8" actually leaves a little more wood to work with in shaping the trailing edge. I haven't done the side pieces (which are tapered) or any of the rabbetting. Next step will be resetting all the positioning blocks in the h-stab jig for the elevator parts.
Man hours: 3 |
| 178 | Leading Edge Plywood | 7/8/2008 |
| | I went to Boulter Plywood in Boston several months ago and took advantage of their deal on 1.5mm Okume. I had it sandwiched between 2 pieces of MDF and anchored to the garage wall since it arrived. Yesterday I ripped 5 sheets of it into 9.5" x 8' strips. I did more than I needed in order to help out a friend and fellow builder. ...hopefully this stuff will work out well for all of us that use it. It seems a little more plyable than Finnish Birch and should make the wrapping of the upper leading edge a lot easier. I tested a sample piece and bent it to the approximate curve of the leading edge and that stiffened it considerably. It should be fine considering some Pietenpols had their leading edges wrapped in Oatmeal box cardboard (back in the day).
Man hours: 3 |
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| 177 | All Stab Stringers Glued | 7/5/2008 |
| | All stabilizer stringers in place. All that is left is a few doublers at the hard-points and pieces of 1/32" ply in all the trailing edge corners on the gussets to maintain a level edge as there is a 1/32" step at the gusset notch into the rabbet.
Man hours: 1 |
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| 176 | Stab Side 2 Stringers Half Done | 7/4/2008 |
| | After putting a shim of about 1/8" under all the aluminum brackets used in the pinching clamps I fastened them all down again with screws. After sanding and vacuuming all the glue points, I glued the stringers and clamped them down. Plan is to repeat that operation on the other side tomorrow.
Bought some Permagrit sanding blocks to round the leading edge. Tried them out and really like the control you have using them vs. power tools. Also bought a Stanley Shurform plane set (large and small set) and will use those to take the edge down to where the Permagrit tools can be used to make a very consistent rounded leading edge.
Man hours: 1 |
| 175 | Bottom Stringers for H. Stab | 6/30/2008 |
| | I turned the stabilizer over in the jig. Previously the trailing edge was flush with the jig and the leading edge and main spar were shimmed up 1/8". I just added 1/8" shims everywhere to raise all points to where the capstrips (now on the bottom) clear the jig surface. As others mentioned on the Pietenpol forum, there was no bow to work out of the leading edge due to pull by the capstrips. Everything went back down into the jig nice and flat. I started putting the angle bracket pinch clamps back in aligning with the bottom capstrip. Didn't complete the mission. Oh well...
Man hours: 1.5 |
| 174 | All Top Stringers Done | 6/29/2008 |
| | Moved the "pinch clamps" to the other side and finished the other top side of the horizontal stabilizer.
Man hours: 3 |
| 173 | H. Stab Stringers | 6/28/2008 |
| | The first thing that I learned while surveying the work for adding the stringers was that I underestimated the effort. I had planned on this being the simple 30 minute last step. Nope. I sought ideas on the Pietenpol forum and exchanged ideas with some people I know and came up with a new type of clamp on the jig. It's a combination of all the advice I've received along with my thoughts for a very simple, nail-free, clamping solution. I cut a piece of 1" x 1" AL angle bracket into 24 1" pieces. Two of them together makes a nice pinching clamp. Here's the rundown...- Square up the stringer and align the clamp on the other side of the square
- Fasten clamp in place with a screw
- At the opposite end of the stringer add another clamp the same way
- Add another one in the middle
- Pull out the square and add the opposing side pieces for each pinch clamp with stringer in place
- I sanded a very slight angle into the tip of the stringer where it meets the leading edge at an angle
- Coarse sand all glue points on stringers and on the stabilizer, remove dust
- Apply glue and place stringer between the clamps
- Using small quick clamps I pressed the stringer down at each contact point and locked in place with a quick-clamp on my pinching clamp.
It took a while but the rest should go quickly since I have a plan and it appears to be working well.
Man hours: 4 |
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| 172 | More Spruce Ripped | 6/26/2008 |
| | Flitzer master craftsman Ivan Morrisoff (John Morris) came by and helped me rip another spruce board into the pre-planing rough dimensions I need to continue the recent momentum and launch into the rest of the tail feathers starting with the elevators. 16' boards are just too difficult to single-hand through a table saw. In spite of the antique table saw falling apart while mid-cut, we got it ripped up into 2 roughly 1.25" x 1.75" x 16' pieces. ...and thankfully they remained pretty straight after the cut.
Man hours: 1 |