I glued the second rudder spar together tonight. I am trying not to push myself too hard as I am still fighting a little bit of a cold. I still try to do a small little project each day though.
I probably won't fly tomorrow as the weather looks pretty horrible.
Number of hours: 0.3
Total hours: 193.6
I glued one of the rudder spars together today. The nose gear spring came back from the blacksmith yesterday. I still need to drill the two holes and grind the chamfers on one the front end.
On Wednesday I did get a chance to fly my dual cross country. We flew from Princeton, to Hutchinson, to Milbank, and back. I was hoping to do my 3 take offs and landings at a towered airport on Friday, but we got 15" of snow Thursday night and the airport didn't get plowed out on Friday. Monday's weather isn't looking to nice but I still might be able to slide in my solo cross country or my towered airport operations.
Number of hours: 0.5
Total hours: 193.3
Yesterday I removed the extra glue from the first winglet spar using my plane and then glued the second winglet spar together. I cleaned up the second winglet spar tonight and then cut all of the pieces for the two rudder spars. Then I glued the hinge reinforcements onto two of the rudder spar verticals. I figured that I don't show enough pictures of completed parts so I included a picture of the two winglet spars as they sit, waiting for their plywood facing.
My order from AS&S containing my nut plates and my canard spar cap strips arrived today! The only problem is that my truck is still in the shop, after a week and a half, for a head gasket replacement so I can't bring the 13+ foot container home from work.
Wanda, Xerxes, and Yogi are keeping us in really nasty weather here in Minnesota so my 1st dual cross country was cancelled yesterday. I hope that the weather is good enough tomorrow, Friday, and Monday to keep my scheduled appointments but it doesn't look too promising.
Number of hours: 1.2
Total hours: 192.8
I didn't get much done this weekend, I cleaned up a little bit and I glued up one of the winglet spars.
Number of hours: 0.3
Total hours: 191.6
Tonight I finished cleaning up the winglet ribs except that 6 of them need a 15 degree angle cut into the back edge where they will mate to the winglet spar. When that was done, I cut all of the 8mm X 20mm pieces for the winglet spars and then glued the hinge reinforcements to one side of each of the winglet spar verticals. I figured that I would try to build both spars at once.
It may seem like I am jumping around a bit, but there is method to my madness. I was working on the canard until I realized that I had not ordered the spar caps for it. Then I moved on to the main wing spar cap strips but I can't finish the main wing spars until I move out to the garage this summer because I don't have enough room to build them properly in the basement. This led me to the winglets, which incidentally, I can't assemble until the holes are drilled in the winglet spars and rudder spars for the hinge nut plates and the aluminum tubes need to be mounted in the winglet spars for the winglet mounting screws. I have the hinges but no nut plates. I received news today that my nut plates and spar cap strips shipped from AS&S today. Hopefully I will be able to complete the fabrication of the 2 winglet spars and the 2 rudder spars by the time that shipment arrives. Of course, then the dilemma will he what to work on next! I will probably try to finish up the winglets because I cannot sheet the canard leading edge until I bolt the main pivot fittings in place, but maybe I will just add a couple of access holes to the plywood in those areas and call it good?
On an unrelated note, can you believe that it is April 11th and we got a half a foot of snow today? Unbelievable!
Number of hours: 1.2
Total hours: 191.3
Not the kind you get at Applebees! I spent my free time this week updating the solid models for the winglets and then made CNC programs for each of the 9 ribs, although there are 2 sets of identical ribs in each winglet so it was only 7 programs, confused yet? I spent the last part of Friday afternoon machining the 18 ribs at work. I was able to clean up 10 of the ribs this afternoon and cut the 8mm square stock that will make up the leading edge and the two attachment points for the leading edge plywood.
Number of hours: 4.2
Total hours: 190.1
I left off last night questioning the next step of the project. Tonight I started with my block plane again and cleaned up the final spar cap. I spent the rest of my time studying my plans trying to understand the design intent behind the winglets. I believe that I finally figured them out. So I started laying out the winglets on a piece of 4' by 4' MDF. I can't believe how big they end up! I won't be able to complete the layout tonight because there are some measurements that I want to lay out in CAD tomorrow.
Number of hours: 0.8
Total hours: 185.9
