Main Spar #8

I finally glued the last spar cap lamination this morning.  I ended up in a food coma this afternoon because we had our Easter celebration at our house this year.  This means that I didn't get much more done.  I cleaned up the first upper spar cap with my block plane this evening.  I am still debating what my next step should be, I better figure it out soon LOL.

Number of hours:  1.2
Total hours:  185.1

Main Spar #7

Yesterday afternoon started with a trip to Home Depot to get some clamps.  10 spring clamps and 4 bar type clamps to be exact.  I used my block plane to clean up the final lower spar cap last night and then glued the second to last lamination on one of the upper spar caps.  I cleaned up that lamination with my block plane this morning and then glued the final lamination in place.  I still ended up wishing for more clamps so I went to HD again this evening and picked up 4 more spring clamps and 1 more bar clamp.  It's nice to have the right tools for the job.  I now have 3 completed spar caps so I glued the second to last lamination to the final upper spar cap.  I couldn't clean up the 3rd spar cap yet as the epoxy has not fully cured.

Number of hours:  2.2
Total hours:  183.9

Main Spar #6

I cleaned up the first completed lower spar cap tonight with my block plane.  Then I glued and clamped the final lamination on the other lower spar cap.  This leaves 2 more laminations on each of the upper spar caps.  Maybe I can get the caps done by the end of the weekend?  It will be a challenge with Easter on Sunday and everyone coming over for lunch.  Once the caps are done I will start assembling the spars one at a time including the sheer webs on both faces of the spars.  I just remembered that a nut plate is required on the inside of the spar tip, so I may not be able to complete the sheer webs until my order shows up from AS&S.

Number of hours:  0.9
Total hours:  181.7

Caffeine Fueled Sermon

I wrote the following bit on our EAA chapter's Facebook page and I like it so much I feel that I should share it here too:

Ultralights are an approachable, affordable, and attainable way for the average person to get into aviation. There are many great used aircraft available right now for under $5k, so with flight training you can get in the air for under $7k and then you only have to worry about the cost of fuel and oil (probably around $10 - $15 / hr depending on your engine choice). Hangar costs can be eliminated if you buy something that will fit in a trailer, or in the case of a powered parachute, in the back of your car / truck / minivan. If you can't afford to put a big chunk of money on the table at one time, you can build in small chunks and self finance your project. Team aircraft offer the Minimax and the Highmax in a single kit or broken into smaller, more affordable chunks. Their tail kit costs around $100, so a person can see how they like building with wood before having a large investment in a project.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Main Spar #5

I glued the fourth and final layer on one of the lower cap strips tonight.  This is another one of those processes that requires a deceivingly large amount of epoxy; it took me 3 batches of glue to complete this lamination.

I will need to go to Home Depot tomorrow to buy some more clamps as these laminations are starting to get really long at 2100mm, 3835mm, and 3837mm.

Number of hours:  0.7
Total hours:  180.8

Main Spar #4

I cleaned up one of my previous laminations for one of the lower spar caps tonight with my block plane.  Then I glued another layer to it.  I am sorry that these pictures all look really similar, it is monotonous for me too LOL.

Last night's EAA meeting was fun, I ended up visiting two hangars afterward so it was a late night.

Number of hours:  0.5
Total hours:  180.1

Main Spar #3

Short and sweet tonight, I got one more set of laminates glued together before the EAA meeting tonight.

Number of hours:  0.3
Total hours:  179.6

Main Spar #2

I glued together 3 sets of laminations this morning and 2 sets of laminations tonight.  I figured out that I could glue multiples as long as they were small.  That means that I have 6 of the 14 glue joints complete at this point.  I have 1 more small joint that I believe can be done with another of the medium size joints.  Hopefully I can get that done before the EAA meeting tomorrow night.  This still means that it will be about a week before I will be able to complete all 4 spar caps.  Overall I would say that it was a pretty productive weekend.
Number of hours:  1.3
Total hours:  179.3

Main Spar #1

I finally planed the wood from my most recent Aircraft Spruce order this afternoon.  My kids enjoyed playing outside in the snow while I did my job.  After I finished planing the wood I brought it all back down to the workshop.  The next thing I decided to do was to cut down all of the spar cap strips for both of the main wings.  I had to do some math to figure out the length of the bottom cap strip as it is not on the drawing.  It ends up being 1.16mm longer than the top cap strip.  I ended my day by gluing 2 of the 4 laminate layers together for one of the lower cap strips.  I was hoping to do 3 of the 4 but I didn't mix enough epoxy.  This ended up being a blessing in disguise because I probably wouldn't have been able to keep the 3 pieces together and flat while the epoxy cured.  I figure that this means it will take me 2 more sessions to finish up this cap strip.  This works out to be 14 total sessions to make the 4 cap strips.  That means I will be working on these things for a while unless I can figure out a way to work on more than one cap strip at a time; my small workshop is the limiting factor in this situation.

Number of hours:  1.5
Total hours:  178.0

Back Again

Well, I didn't get to go on that cross country.  The weather was freezing rain and I had a 102* fever that weekend.   I am slowly getting back to full health.   It seems as if the kids are trying to kill me this year with all of the crud that they have brought home from school.

I broke down and purchased a benchtop bandsaw yesterday that I found on Craigslist.   Tonight I put it to work cutting 70' of 1/2" square stock into trailing edge.  Now I know you purists out there will complain that I didn't use 10mm stock for this job to which I say, give me a break.  It sucks bad enough cutting this stuff from 1/2".  I am not going through the hassle of planing it then cutting it.  The weight penalty is negligible.   I might hate cutting trailing edge as much as building spars.  Oh well, enough complaining.  I decided to order the correct length of spar caps for the canard, so hopefully I will see them in two weeks or so.  The spring steel for the front fork will be done at the blacksmith sometime next week from the sounds of things.  My friends at the laser shop haven't snuck me into their schedule yet.  I hope that they can get me the parts before the next EAA meeting as I would like to bring the parts and beg for someone with 4130 welding experience to finish them for me.  The avionics are still in process at my brother-in-law's house.  I haven't been bothering him about it because I'm not in a hurry for them yet.  I hope that this is a satisfactory update, weather and health have really sapped all of my ambition over the past few weeks.  I will try to plane down the rest of my material this weekend and I would like to start building the canard and main wing spars but I don't want to push it.

Number of hours:  0.7
Total hours:  176.5

Cleaning Up

I received my shipment from Aircraft Spruce today and spent part of the evening checking things to the packing slip.  Then I started to match the stock to the parts that need to be built.  I discovered that I didn't order full length material for the canard spar caps.  This means that I will have to scarf the two outer spar caps on the canard.  This isn't the end of the world its just disappointing.  I expect to cut and glue the scarf joints tomorrow.  I then moved on to cleaning the workshop and moved the fuselage upstairs to our front room so I have more room to build the canard.  My wife is somewhat upset with me over this decision, but I think she understands and is giving me some good natured ribbing saying that she will use it as a planter or let the kids take it outside to use as a sled.

I flew for another 1 hour of dual instruction and 1.2 hours solo on Friday.  It was a big deal to me to finally leave the airport by myself.  It was an even bigger deal to make it back without getting lost!  Things started to get chilly so I headed back to the airport a little early.  There was a pretty healthy crosswind so I didn't get any landings that I felt good about.  I need to go to the pilot shop at Anoka tomorrow so I can purchase a current sectional map for the Twin Cities as I hope to fly my dual cross country on Saturday.  It is looking doubtful that I will get to fly as the weather is looking pretty crappy.  My logbook now contains 20.2 hours of which 1.7 is solo.

Number of hours:  1.1
Total hours:  175.8