Workshop

The assessment of the plane showed that the wings need to be replaced and the belly of the fuse will need some effort as well. The rudder will also be replaced and then there were a few items that Roger wanted done to the plane.

 

7/15/11

I discussed the needs with Dennis at Carden and he will send the required materials as soon as he gets his shipment of good wood.

8/8/11

Work began on the plane today.

FIRST ITEM -- the bolts that hold the canopy to the fuse were pulling through the side of the plane. I inspected the sides and the bolts were passing through a maple block with side grain. The head of the bolts were only slightly bigger than the shaft and that was causing the problem of pull through. I drilled out the face side of the fuse sides to a large enough hole to accept a #6 washer. This is done with a forrestner bit to be sure the hole is flat bottomed. I drilled deep enough to hide the head of the #8 bolt. I then drilled out the washer to take the bolt and glued the washers in the holes to make a long term fix.

SECOND ITEM -- The top of the equipment compartment had some braces that worked well for the structure but made working in the equipment comaprtment very hard to do.

I removed those braces and made a picture frame style brace from thin ply. I mounted it to the fuse using a 1/32 square mounting rail.

The final product was 6.5 oz lighter than the original and will allow easy access to the equipment.

8/9/11

THIRD ITEM -- The tail wheel bracket and hatch were destroyed in the mishap. i started by stripping the structure and I found that the tail wheel plate was glued and pinned into some 3/8 square balsa and that is why it failed in the crash. I made new rails out of hard wood and glued and pinned the plate to the new rails.

The hatch was not in good shape so I made a new one and shaped it to match the line of the fuse.

FOURTH ITEM -- The landing gear was removed from the plane and needed to be returned to its correct position.

I began by stripping the under side of the fuse and I found a lot of damage to the structure. That damage will need to be repaired and then an new landing gear block will be put in place. The canister tunnel was also damaged and that will need to be repaired as well.

Once the entire fuse was repaired, it was set aside to await the wings.

 

The wings were destroyed and so we had to start over with new wing foams and materials.

 

First step was to make the wing skins be edge gluing the sheets.

I cut the Phenolic tubes from the old wings and glued some 1/16" sheet on the end of the tubes. They were then fitted in the wing foams.

The ailerons and the wing tube extensions were laid out and made to fit.

The aileron bays were cut and the hard mounts were epoxied in place.

The tube and extensions were glued in place and the channel for the wires was cut to make the foams ready for skinning.

The foams were then skinned by gluing the 1/32 skins to the foam using Gorilla glue. The skins were sanded in an earlier operation to make them smooth and 1/2 the thickness they started out at.

The wings were returned to the foam shucks and vacuumed bagged to be sure there was good pressure. In addition to the bags, I use about 300 lbs of weight to hold the wings flat while the glue sets up. This gives a good straight wing after several hours of drying time.

The wings came out of the process with the wood on and some extra material on the edges.

 

Below you can see the ailerons were drawn on the surface of the wing. The lines indicate the cuts that will be made and the material removed will be replaced with balsa to form the bevel for the ailerons to move up and down

Also the trailing edge material was glued on and secured with tape while the white glue dried.

Next the leading edge material was glued in place

Next I cut out the ailerons. The section in the center of the cuts allows for the wood that will be added later

The wood was then glued to the cut lines and allowed to dry

Once the trimming was done, the wings were looking pretty good. Next operation was to hinge and bevel the aileron joint so that it can be moved up and down.

I drew the locations of the hinges on the trailing edge of the wing and established a center line. I then drilled at the intersection of the lines for the hinges.

 

After the hinges were drilled, I beveled the trailing edge of the wing and the leading edge of the aileron. This is a slow process that yielded aileorns with 55 degrees of fhrow.

The wing roots were then set by locating the root against the fuse and then adjusting the root of the wing to fit against the root rib. I glued the ribs in place once each wing was in position.

The Ailerons were then beveled to hinge up and operate as we desired. For Roger, I set the wing bevels so that there was 56 degrees of throw on the ailerons. He might not need all that throw but it is there if he wants to use it.

 

The wings had all the woodworking done on them and they were still rough shaped.

The first sanding was done and the second sanding took them to 180 grit.

Next I mounted the wings on the fuse. The process began with and inspection of the inside of the fuse and I found there were two locations that had been used for anti-rotation pins and bolts in the past. I decided to use the holes for the new attachment system.

 

I began by putting one wing on the wing tube and sliding it up to the fuse. I used the incidence hardware to set the wing to zero incidence compared to the datum line.

 

Once the incidence was right, I put a block on the fuse under the trailing edge to position the wing and repeated the process for the other wing.

 

Next, I drilled the wing roots to accept a 3/8" hard point for the two mounting places on each wing. The hard points were glued in place and then I set aluminum mounts in the dowels so that a 1/4 - 20 bolt would thread into the wing roots. The wing headed bolts are shown below.

I then set the wings on the fuse and adjusted the mounting holes to set the wings at the correct incidence. I used washers on the inside of the fuse to position the bolts. I tightened down the bolts and rechecked the wings for straightness and alignment.

Next I put the wood on the rudder that I had made with the wings using the same steps.

 

The rudder was beveled and hinged to fit on the plane. Everything looked good and I was ready to set the control horn assembly. I inspected the old control horn and found it was damaged so I ordered a new one.

 

I started covering the wings with the bottom and completed the bottom of the wings and both ailerons.

Once the bottom surfaces were done, I set the control horns and tightened them down to final position with locktite.

On the top side of the aileron, I sunk the head of the bolt in the hard point and I added med CA to help hold the bolt in position.

I then filled the holes and sanded them flat so that they will not show on the top surfaces.

I then glued all the hinges in the wings and let them set up. I checked that every one of the hinges operated smoothly and then glued the ailerons to the wings.

Once the glue set up I checked the ailerons for movement and cleaned them up to be sure no glue was smeared on the wings.

After hinging the wings were done and I waxed them and put them in the wing bags.

Next I returned to the rudder and made the assembly for the control horn. I cut the rudder out to fit the control horn assembly and glued it in place. I added other blocks to complete the installation and waited for the Epoxy to dry.