| 155 | H-Stab Gussets And Main Spar | 3/23/2008 |
| | After getting the side members of the horizontal stabilizer done, I decided to make the gussets.
I made the leading edge gussets first. My technique for determining the curves was a little less
technical than I thought it would be in the earlier planning stages. I looked down and saw a roll
of masking tape, about the right diameter and made a manilla template. I cut out the template and
traced the shape onto the 1/8" ply, cut them out and sanded on the oscillating drum sander. After
a few rubs with a fine grade paper by hand, they looked good. Every time I look at them I get the
sense they are a little too big. I can always slide them up and trim off the excess when it comes
time to glue. As I wrapped up the long day, I fitted the main spar between the sides and made guides
on the jig for the sides. Next will be the removal of the lip of the rabbet where the gussets go.
Man hours: 2 |
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| 154 | Horizontal Stab Sides | 3/22/2008 |
| | This seems like the "fun" part. The part where dimensions for a lot of abutting pieces don't quite match. The sides go from outside dimension of 3/4" at the leading edge to 1" at the hinge edge. I started by ripping a piece and planing it down to 1" x 1" and cutting the pieces to fit between the leading and trailing edge pieces. I might just gently rip off a little from top and bottom with the table saw and sand down to precise dimension. Then the rabbet will be added. Again, the rabbet is 1/8" deep at the leading edge and 3/16 at the trailing edge.
Man hours: 1.5 |
| 153 | Incremental Progress on Stabilizer | 3/9/2008 |
| | Even though I had a long list of things to do today I was lucky enough to squeeze in an hour of project time. I fastened down the positioning blocks for the trailing edge, leading edge and spar for the h-stab. The little 1/8" ply shims keep the LE and spar floating at the right height and so far this approach seems to be going according to plan. Before glueing I still need to remove rabbeted edges where gussets go, make side pieces and diagonal truss pieces.
Man hours: 1.5 |
| 152 | It's In The House Now | 3/7/2008 |
| | The tools and bits of the project which have taken over a shed and half the garage has now entered the house. ...and, yes, my wife has opened her heart and her home to a temporary stay from a new visitor, the horizontal stabilizer. The jig is up on sawhorses in the mud room with the main pieces set roughly in place. I cut pieces of 1/8" ply to lift the 3/4" main beam and leading edge up to keep everything level. I cut position blocks and set them roughly in place. Ready to start adding clamps and screwing down the position blocks. I am finding the metal saw horses from Home Depot really handy. When you want an absolutely true level surface, using these horses, some threaded rod and pieces of pine you can make the top surface adjustable. This is the same thing I did for making the infeed/outfeed for the planer.
Man hours: 1 |
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| 151 | Tail Feather Jig Prep | 3/3/2008 |
| | Used the jointer to flatten one side of some 3" pine and then screwed to the MDF jig. Cut some positioning blocks and ready to make the side pieces. Due to its size the H stab jig is far less convenient than the rib jig.
Man hours: 1 |
| 150 | Horizontal Stabilizer Progress | 3/1/2008 |
| | Well, it was slow going. I did a last minute true-up of the leading edge, spar, and trailing edge. Planed down to specs, going slow in many passes to make sure I ended up with the correct dimensions. I set up the rabbet fences on the router table and ran a few sample pieces through to check measurements. After several attempts I finally got the right height and depth. Ran the leading edge through and did a test fit with the 1/8" plywood and it was flush. Reset fence for the trailing edge depth and ran it through. Those 3 pieces are now done and ready to go into the jig. Ripped a few pieces of 1/8" plywood for shims and hope to get those clamped into the jig tomorrow and prep the side pieces that have the taper. Very happy with how things turned out today. Lots of sawdust to clean up.
Man hours: 4 |
| 149 | Empennage Rabbeting | 2/17/2008 |
| | I had a few ideas for how to rabbet the perimeter pieces of the empennage. You can see it in the profile/cross sectional drawings of the plans. I thought about doing it with the tablesaw but that seemed like it would be hard to adjust the blade depth. I had another idea. I squared off the surfaces of a piece of poplar to make a fence for my router table. I bolted the infeed (tall) piece to table on the infeed side of the router. The outfeed (low) fence is perfectly aligned with the router cut line. Actually, it's the same concept as a jointer. I can raise the router to adjust the depth of the rabbet in the Y direction or move the infeed fence to change depth in the X direction. I tested with a piece of the poplar and it works pretty well with little opportunity for anything to go wrong. I think I will have even better results if I do it in several passes. It actually took longer to sweep up the wood chips from the test than it did to make the fence.
Man hours: 1 |
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| 148 | Tail Feathers - The Plan | 2/16/2008 |
| | I've been procrastinating and, frankly, intimidated by the tail feathers. The dimensions just don't match on joining pieces and the tapering of pieces looked difficult. Well, I sat down and started planning the approach. With a good plan in hand I headed out to the shop and ripped some 1.75" x 6" rough cut spruce into 1.25" lengths 90" long. I then surfaced 2 sides on a jointer and will plane them down to the plans dimensions soon. The general outline...
- Rip spruce to oversized dimensions
- Plane all shaped pieces down to the plans dimensions
- Mount a fence on my router table to make the 1/8" (Leading edge) and 3/16" (Hinge spar) rabbets.
- Side pieces are different. I think I can get the overall taper on the jointer, then get the tapered rabbet on the router table using a push stick that has 1/16" ply glued on the end to send the piece through at a slight angle.
- Cut away rabbets where gussets go
- Apply gussets
- Round the leading edge and sides on router table with radiused corner tool.
- Put in capstrips
The drawing below is an exaggerated non-scale drawing to help me understand where the dimension anomolies are.
Man hours: 2 |
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