Thursday, January 31, 2013

Another Change

I found a good deal on another engine, so I am going to sell the KT-100.  The new to me engine is a Konig SC430, 3 cylinder, 2 stroke radial that makes 24 HP at 4200 rpm and it has a 1.75:1 reduction drive so I can swing a much larger prop than my ground clearance will allow if I were so inclined as to do such a silly thing.

This engine has electric start so I am starting to consider what I want to do for an electrical system.  I really like the idea of using the GenniPod on the front of the nose cone and perhaps a 15 Watt solar cell somewhere too.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

A Little More CAD Work

I laid out the parts that I need out of 1.5mm and 2mm 4130 steel in CAD yesterday and then I weaseled a favor from a friend to get them laser cut when their machine is back online.

I was greeted with a bit of good news yesterday when I checked my mail.  I received an envelope from the FAA and in the envelope was my 3rd class medical and student pilot certificate!  Thank you everyone for your words of encouragement during this long ordeal.

Number of hours:  0.5
Total hours:  171.0

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Bushed

I turned the lap belt bushings tonight and I drilled and inserted the control stick bushing into the torque tube.

Number of hours:  0.6
Total hours:  170.5

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Torque Tube

I cut the control stick, torque tube, torque tube inserts, and the various 8mm diameter X 6mm diameter tubes today.  It was so cold in the garage that the circuit breaker tripped when I turned on the lathe.

Number of hours:  0.7
Total hours:  169.9

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Some Random Holes

I drilled the holes for the wing attach fittings and temporarily mounted them with some 10-32 bolts, washers, and nuts.  Next I drilled the counterbores for the lap belt bolts.  Then I moved forward and drilled the holes for the canard torque tube.  If you look close enough, you'll see that I have a bonus hole above the right side torque tube.  Lastly I drilled and temporarily mounted the wing attach fittings to F3.  It's too cold to do any metal work in the garage right now so I'm running out of options for what to do next.

Number of hours:  0.9
Total hours:  169.2

Monday, January 21, 2013

Making Some Holes

Happy 100th post and 3,000th page view!

I drilled my pilot holes to mount the main wing spar fittings on F2 and I drilled holes for the lap belt mounts.  I couldn't resist the urge, so I sat in the fuselage after I took the clamps off the seat bottom.  Zoom zoom zoom...

Number of hours:  0.6
Total hours:  168.3

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Something You Can Do With Your Butt

I now have a place to put my butt.  I glued the seat bottom in place tonight.  The big lesson learned here is that cross braces should be glued to plywood before gluing them in place in the structure.  I glued the cross braces in the fuselage first and one must have been slightly long and was bowed so I had to shim it up to the seat bottom.  I spent some time studying pulleys and noticed that the callout for the pullies that are for the aileron cables at the side of the stick is incorrect.  It says that the pulley is 72mm diameter but the center to center distance with the safety hole is 36mm leaving room for a 68mm diameter pulley; and the pulley scales closer to 60mm than 72mm.

Number of hours:  0.5
Total hours:  167.7

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Floor and Seat Bottom

I glued the floor in place this morning.  I would have got more done today but I had to drop my truck back off at the mechanic's shop to fix the misfire that it developed.  I had some other errands to run today and picked up my truck around 6 this evening.   Of course, nothing is ever simple and I hit a deer on the way home.  So I spent the rest of my evening dealing with the police and gutting the deer.  It was really cold and windy here tonight.  Temperature was 8 degrees F and the wind was 30 - 35 MPH gusting to 45 / 50 MPH this makes wind chill at -15 degrees F conservatively.   After that adventure I rewarded myself by putting a second coat of varnish on the bottom of the seat bottom.

Number of hours:  0.7
Total hours:  167.2

Friday, January 18, 2013

Seat Bottom

I machined the seat bottom at work today and put a coat of varnish on the bottom side after dinner this evening.   I was able to log 1.9 hours of flight in this afternoon working on the pts maneuvers and a lot of touch and goes.  My instructor said that I would have soloed tonight if I had my medical so I need to start leaning on the good folks in OKC a little harder.  What beautiful weather for flying!

Number of hours:  0.4
Total hours:  166.5

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Failing Forward

Today's title is supposed to be a little bit of dry humor because I was being too hard on myself the other day for making some mistakes.  I lost sight of the big picture that this is supposed to be fun and relaxing.  If a mistake happens, build the thing again and move on, just enjoy the process!

Tonight I got home and went right to work after dinner.  I went out to the garage and pulled the came phaser solenoid out of the truck to check if it was clogged because it has developed a misfire.  Unfortunately this was not the case so it looks like it will be going back to the shop again.   I spent some time discussing the issue with my mechanic, put my tools away, grabbed some more tools, and went inside to replace the hose connecting the valve to the refrigerator.   I found out that the hose was not replaceable and that the valve was pressed onto the end of the copper pipe.  So off to Home Depot I went.  Of course you can't go to The Home Depot and get only the thing you went for in the first place.  Not wanting to break tradition, I picked up two packages of staples and some pop too.  I got home and finished the project.  I am going to lay awake tonight wondering if the fittings are leaking or not just because I'm neurotic like that.

I figured after all of that adventure in one night that I deserved to reward myself with some plane building activities.  I went down to my office and set to work putting the second coat of spar varnish on the parts that I had coated last night.  Then I cut the blank out of 1/4" plywood so I can machine the seat bottom at work tomorrow.  The pictures probably look real similar to last night's pictures but I assure you that they are different.

Number of hours:  0.6
Total hours:  166.1

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Something Simple

I needed to get a win going on my project to help keep me motivated, so I decided to do something simple tonight.  I varnished the bottom of the 1/4" plywood floor board and I varnished the fuselage interior floor from the front of where the floor board will start all the way to the back of the seat bottom.  The pictures might not show this very well.  It felt good to accomplish something simple that didn't take a lot of brainpower to do.

Number of hours:  0.8
Total hours:  165.5

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Starting Over

I test fit the tank and tank shelf tonight and the fact of the matter is that I have made too many mistakes to salvage it so I am going to do some more research and trials to see if I can come up with a good solution.  Anything worth doing, is worth doing over I guess.  Things like this make me question my abilities, maybe I just am not able to build something like this with the level of quality that is required.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Gas Tank Shelf

I played around a little more today on my breaks and put together a solid model for the canopy.  When I got home tonight I cut out the gas tank shelf and dry fit it until it had a good fit.  Of course I cut too much off the back side because I thought that it was interfering with F2 and not letting the shelf sit down flat on the rails that I glued in yesterday.  Now I need to come up with a different method to secure the tank on the back side.  I think that I will be able to glue a crossmember in between the diagonals of F2 that will sit on top of the rear mounting tabs.  I think that the stress in this area would be a forward and upward force in the case of a sudden stop because the tank will want to rotate about the front mounting bolts and tabs.  Maybe I will bolt a crossmember to the rear tabs, time will tell.  I glued 3 crossmembers on the bottom of the shelf to finish off my evening.  The picture with the bucket is my apparatus for bending the fuselage floor.  It will probably take a few more weeks before it is the shape that I need.

Number of hours:  3.4
Total hours:  164.7

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Fuselage Bottom Shaping

I started my day by pulling staples from the bottom of the fuselage.  After that wonderful task, I rough cut the bottom and then used a block plane and sandpaper to finish the contours.  The next thing I worked on was a way to mount the gas tank.  I tried many iterations without finding a solution that I liked and when I found a solution that I liked either the sump would interfere with the landing gear, the tank mounting tabs would interference with F2, or the seat belt would interfere with the mounting blocks.  I decided to mount the tank so it's top is level with the top of the rear upper longeron at F2 as I believe that this will be the best compromise with the geometry that is available.  After all this fiddling around, I glued a rail on each side above the main landing gear reinforcement.   I finished off my day by estimating the lines that I will be using for the canopy with some scrap wire that I had sitting around.  I hope that the wires show up well enough in the pictures.

I did have a discouraging epiphany today, I won't be able to glue the masts on while the plane is in the basement workshop.  This means that I will have to leave the sides off too until I can glue the masts in place in the garage.  Not the end of the world but it does put a slight kink in my plans.  I forgot to take a picture of my method for forming the fuselage floor, I will try to remember over the next few days.

Number of hours:  6.2
Total hours:  161.3

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Fuselage Bottom Attachment

I spent some time this morning cleaning up some glue drips.  Then I drilled the hole for the attachment of the front gear spring to F1.  It's best to drill this hole when F1 is not in the fuselage if you can do it.  Actually all of the bulkheads' holes should be drilled before they are attached to the fuselage so the holes can be made with a drill press.  Lesson learned I guess.  After I drilled the hole I started to prep the fuselage bottom for attachment to the fuselage.  I glued on the plywood bottom tonight and stapled it in place.  This took a little over two hours, a big batch of epoxy, two small batches of epoxy, and about 4 groups of staples.

Number of hours:  3.5
Total hours:  155.1

Friday, January 11, 2013

Fuselage Bottom Scarf Joint #2

I removed the clamps from the first scarf joint tonight and then glued and clamped the second scarf joint.  I picked up the tank tonight and set it in the fuselage to check for location.  It looks like it will be a pretty good fit.  The fuselage is upside down in the photo and the sump is toward the back at F2.

Number of hours:  0.5
Total hours:  151.6

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Fuselage Bottom Scarf Joint #1

I sent off a drawing of the front gear spring for quote today to a local spring maker.   Hopefully he will be able to make it for a reasonable price.  I decided that I am going to buy a 12" X 12" X 8" tank with a 2" sump because one is available locally for a good price.  I will have to mount it about 3" below the top longeron so I may need to add a filler neck to the tank in the future.  The arm for this tank will be approximately 0.24 m.

Tonight I fiddled a bit with some minor trim work and excess glue removal and then I decided to glue the first scarf joint for the plywood that will cover the bottom of the fuselage.   No pictures today as this looks exactly like my last scarf joint.  I hope that you can use your imagination.

Number of hours:  0.5
Total hours:  151.1

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Fuselage Top Continued

I finished shaping the fuselage top this evening.  During the day I struggled through some theoretical weight and balance calculations for gross weight and maximum aft cg location based on the numbers found in the operations manual and some of my own estimates.  The former was not so positive but the latter was a lot less bleak.  I attribute the disparity to the fact that the data provided in the manual is for the fiberglass version and not the wooden version.

My next step is cleaning and then some more scarf joints.

Number of hours:  1.3
Total hours:  150.6

Onyx Videos

Here are links to two videos of flying Onyx's

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ttro_onyx-montage2final_sport

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiZOzZ28O5I

from this classified ad:  http://www.avions-piel.com/ventes/topic1284.html



Monday, January 7, 2013

Fuselage Top Staples

Sorry, no pictures tonight.  Work continues on and I finished pulling the staples out the fuselage top tonight and then I trimmed the sides of the top flush with the longerons.  I got half of the cockpit opening trimmed and shaped also.  Hopefully, I'll be able to finish that up tomorrow night.  Then I need to do some housekeeping because of the sawdust.

Number of hours:  3.5
Total hours:  149.3

Friday, January 4, 2013

Fuselage Top

I removed my clamping set up from the scarfed sheets this afternoon and then cleaned the excess epoxy from the joint.  My next step was to scuff the underside of the whole thing.  I mixed up a lot of epoxy and applied it to the top of the fuselage crossmembers, longerons, and F1.  I carefully placed the plywood on top of the fuselage and tacked it down with staples.  I was a little off where it butts up to F2, but I can fill the gap with epoxy later.  I was hoping to get my next scarf joint glued tonight, but I had some errands to run that got in the way; plus I didn't realize it at the time, but this process was a lot of work and really tired me out.

Number of hours:  2.4
Total hours:  145.8

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Starting to Scarf

I have spent countless hours trying to decide on a method to cut the scarf joints that I liked and could be done at home.  I gave up on that plan today and decided to cut the scarfs on my 1.5mm thick plywood sheets for the top and bottom of the fuselage at work.  Now I know it can be done with less than $100 tools, but this was a very easy way to cut them.  I chucked up a 3/4" diameter ball end mill in one of our CNC routers and programmed a parallel finishing operation to cut the angle.  I was able to scarf one end of the sheet in about 5 minutes.  We have four Komo CNC routers at work.  I have included a picture of one of the routers cutting the plywood and a picture of one of our high production routers.  I glued up the first set of sheets when I got home tonight.  This project seems to require some interesting clamp set ups.

Number of hours:  1.3
Total hours:  143.4

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Masts

I machined out the 4 masts at work today.  When I got home I laid out my plans for scarfing the plywood for the top and bottom of the fuselage.  I will bring the plywood to work tomorrow to be cut.  Then I figured out my plan for mounting my 4 point harness and cut and glued two hard points to the forward edge of the landing gear reinforcements.   I am still working on a connection point for the shoulder harnesses, but that part of the design can wait a little while yet.  Disclaimer - do not follow some idiot on the internet, i.e. me, for the proper design and installation of your safety system.

I hope that everyone is starting their new year healthy and happy!

Number of hours:  1.8
Total hours:  142.1