Final check and alignment to make sure fuselage is square. Aligned and tacked the upper and lower forward cross tubs (total of six.) Heated the one side of the bungee truss to straighten it out.
Apr 23
2hrs
Cut and routed patterns for making throttle quadrants. Finally got the router to work right. Tomorrow I'll be
routing some aluminum.
Apr 24
1.7hrs
Spent the evening cutting some of the rough-shaped blanks for the throttle quadrants. Saturday I'll begin routing these to their actual shapes.
Apr 27
2hrs
Denise did all the grunt work of pushing the fuselage sides in while I put heat to the top and
bottom longerons. Took quite a bit longer than I thought it would. Gave Denise a nice resistance workout.
2.2hrs
Worked on routing the pieces out for the throttle quadrant. That carbide bit worked GREAT ! Cut the two front pieces and
all of the upper dividers. Still need to laminate the brass to the upper dividers, cut and route the two back pieces and the bottom spacers.
Apr 28
2.3hrs
Cut additional pieces for throttle quads. Laminated brass to upper dividers and
routed to shape. Still a few more pieces to cut before putting together.
Apr 30
1.5hrs
Drilled, reamed and cut the lower spacers for the throttle quadrant.
2hrs
Figuring out the bend allowance and set-backs for the throttle levers. Began drawing out on CAD. Still a little to do.
May 2
2hrs
Laid out levers on CAD... spent time looking over to make sure that measurements were correct.
May 4
.5hrs
Glued pattern of lever to 4130 and cut, grind to size and drilled two holes. When cutting 4130 it was beginning to bow. Need to ask one of the guys on the forum about that.
May 5
Update on bowing: Asked Scottly. He said he bought 5/8" straps from AS and S. Didn't get my question answered, but I won't have levers that are bowed. I'll order from
AS and S tonight.
May 5
2.5hrs
Squared up the tailpost, cut and notched in upper longerons. Also took stock of what I still needed
as far as tubing goes. Need to compare that to what I have left. Should be close...
May 7
N/A
Measured lengths of tubing and took inventory. Cross-checked with what I still needed for fuselage. 2 hours I'm not adding to the build log.
May 8
2hrs
Drew fuel tank up in CAD. Read "How To Build A Tank" in Skybolt builder's manual on the biplane forum.
May 10
N/A
Went to cut out fuel tank blank... what a mess. Decided to clean up the downstairs workshop. Spent about 3hrs getting it back to looking like a workshop.
May 11
1.5hrs
Cut and shaped the fuel tank template from 1/2" ply. Will cut the actual mock-up out of 3/4" MDF.
May 12
1.5hrs
Spent 1 1/2 hours cutting out the pieces, and match drilling the holes, for the fuel tank mock-up. Spent another 1 1/2 hours putting it together.
Only adding 1 1/2 to my build time. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh !
May 14
2.1hrs
Notched the lower longeron to the tailpost. Cut the tailpost to length (25.25") and cut the 45 degree scarf on it.
Re-snapped the longeron lines aft of the bend for the adjust of the center lines to the outside tangent of the tailpost. This is needed to allow space between the lower longerons for the elevator arm and pushrod.
May 15
2.9hrs
Lined up and attached the tube blocks for the upper longerons. Put fuselage back into table jig. Wanted to make sure that the tailpost would stay vertical when tack welding the longerons to it. Decided to make a jig out of
tubing and flatstock. Nothing fancy. The jig is made and I'm ready to position the tailpost, lock it into place and tack it to the longerons. Read a little about building/attaching tail wheels (.3hrs.)
May 17
1.5hrs
At the auto mechanic's garage waiting on my F-150 to get the brakes worked on and spent
the time being productive. Read a few chapters in Tony B's yellow book; fuel tanks, bushings and tailwheels.
1.6hrs
Spent an innordinate amount of time making sure that the tailpost was squared up and finally got tack welds into it. Ready to
start notching the additional tubes for the fuselage now.
May 18
2.2hrs
Drilled oil access holes in the upper and lower longerons for the cross tubes. Cut and glued up three wood spacer blocks so that I could square up the longerons. Messed with them
and finally gave up. Couldn't get them square by adjusting the X-turnbuckles that I rigged up. Had made initial measurement of spacing with my well made wood fold up tape measure but measured the wood spacer with my Fat Max tape measure. Not a good thing to do.
Between the two they were 3/8" off. Glad I decided to compare the two. eeeeeeeeeesh
May 19
1.7hrs
Actually spent 2.7hrs out in the workshop tonight. Two hours of it was fighting with the space. I figure it took twice as long to make sure that the fuselage was squared up than it should have. Thus, I only marked down one hour for that part of the session. Well, some of that time was actually needed to remake those spacers since they were off by 3/8" and then squared up the sides. Another .7hrs were spent getting that first cross tube measured, cut and notched. More running up and down the steps getting things I forgot to bring up to the garage
workshop than actual work getting done.
May 21
1.5hrs
Measured, cut and notched additional cross-tubes in fuselage tail section. Still a lot more to notch.
May 22
2hrs
Measured, cut and notched two additional ctoss-tubes for the lower longerons (which are in the air.) Took the extra time to make sure that they were square. I think I'll
turn the fuselage over, after tacking in the upper longeron cross-tubes, to tack in the lower longeron cross tubes. That way I'll be sure that they are square and the distance between the two longerons are the same as they are on the upper.
May 25
2.3hrs
Final welding of the bungee truss. Had two small areas that needed to be closed up. Tacked a few additional cross-tubes in the fuselage.
May 26
.7hrs
Still unhappy/unsure of the squareness of the fuselage stations 49.o6 on back. Messed around with it for awhile then decided to looked up "squaring up your fuselage" in one of Tony B's books. Will
use his method of squaring up tomorrow. (he marks a line down the middle of the table then centers the upper cross-tube over the center line using a plumb bob.)
May 27
3.1hrs
Stretched the chalk line down the center of the fuselage and went back and made sure the lower cross-tubes (the ones in the air) were centered over the center line using the blumb bob method. Squared up the sides using the X-turnbuckles. Went back and trimmed the cross-tubes I had previously measured cut and notched. Measured, cut and notched the final cross-tube and called it a night.
May 29
2.4hrs
Worked a little bit more on the throttle quads. Took two off the shelf knobs and cut the necks down on them using the lathe. Turned down the OD of some small 4130 tubing to use as an insert into the knobs. Glued in place then inserted and glued 10-32 threaded studs into the inserts. Drilled out additional holes in the throttle quad housings.
May 30
N/A
Spars have arrived ! May have some issues with customs though. They opened them up and left the end of the shipping tube OPEN ! What smacked a$$e$ ! Still need to check them out.
May 31
3.1hrs
Re-read about site lines so that I could bend up a set of throttle levers for the one throttle quad. Cut and glue CAD drawing of each lever on the 5/8" flatstock I had, put it in the
vice and wacked it with a rubber mallet. Amazing how bend allowance, set-backs and site lines work in harmony. Welded up the washers to the levers, per the plans and had a nice set of levers completed. Marked and cut two blanks for the aluminum spacers I'll be
working on next.
Jun 2
2.5hrs
Made, in my opinion, unacceptable jigs for spacers and routed the spacers using them. Made, in my opinion, unacceptable spacers. These are a re-do.
Jun 3
3.1hrs
Made the jig for routing the rear spacer bars. Two attempts at making the jig before I was happy with it.
Routed two the the rear spacer bars. Fitted them up to the throttle quad. nice...
Jun 5
2.5hrs
More work on the throttle quadrants. Made the last spacer jig and routed the rest of the spacers out.
Put one quad together. The holes on the pieces are so close in tolerence that they are very hard to put together. Need to enlarge the holes on all pieces, slightly.
Jun 7
3.2hrs
Work on the 1st throttle quadrants. A lot of put together and take apart. Sanding off sharp edges and a lot of sanding on the ends to make it nice and smooth. Drilled cut and bent the 2nd two throttle levers.
Jun 8
3.5hrs
Work on the 2nd throttle quadrant. S lot of the same as yesterday only on the second throttle quad. Unhappy with the fit and finish of the four spacer for the 2nd quad. Re-made these. Just about there.
Jun 9
2.2hrs
Finish sanding the 1st quadrant. Working on the 2nd one. Welded the washers to the 2nd set of levers.
Jun 11
1.5hrs
Sanded the second throttle quad. Painted both levers with primer.
Jun 12
2hrs
Spent quite a bit of time on making the design for the vinyl overlay for the throttle quad front covers. Cut and fitted up vinyl to one of the covers. nice.... Too many hours to
include in the log. I'll log 2hrs on it.
Jun 14
.6
Cut down and put the bend on the throttle levers where the knobs will go.
Jun 16
1.5hrs
Back out working on the fuselage. Started to notch the complex notches of the angled tubes of the fuselage top-back. Painfully slow.
Jun 18
2hrs
Finished notching one angled cross tube, started and finshed a second angled cross tube. Need to drill oil access holes and tack these, along with a few other cross tubes and then I'm ready to
flip her.
Jun 23
1.5hrs
Drilled oil access holes for the cross tubes that I just notched. Tacked welded cross tubes for back portion, upper and lower longerons. Next step is to flip over and notch additional cross tubes.
Jun 26
1.7hrs
Draw lines on jig for passenger hand holds. Begin notching tubing for hand holds.
Jun 27
1.7hrs
Hand notched additional tube for hand hold. Used the Tube Notcher to notch two of the smaller tubes. Just need to notch two more tubes then cut to size and then I can
tack those together and be done with them.
800 hours !
Jun 28
2.7hrs
Finished cutting and notching the tubes for the passenger hand holds.
Jun 29
1.3hrs
Made a quick jig to postion the bungee stops on the bungee truss. Tacked all four stops on bungee truss.