Bent ears on second set I made this weekend. Straightened out twist from bend. Not happy with them.
Mar 17
1.5hrs
Fitted up the Plan "A" elevator horns. Needed to trim them down so that they could travel 25 degrees each way.
Mar 18
1.1hrs
Leveled up the fuselage then fitted up the elevator horns. Tacked them into place and will weld tomorrow.
Mar 19
2.3hrs
Took the horz stabs/elevators off fuselage. Welded elevator horns on elevators.
Mar 20
1hr
Cut down sleeved tube and reconnected the stabs/elevators to fuselage. One is 15degrees off from the other ???
Mar 21
1.8hrs
Finished filing and sanding last set of horns I had made. Ground off both elevator horns and started finish grinding the first horn.
1.2hrs
Final grinding and filing of first elevator horn. Test fit horn and it fits.
Mar 22
1.9hrs
Final grinding/filing off of the starboard elevator horn. Drilled the holes in the elevator horns for the spacer block then cleaned them up. Fitted the port elevator onto fuselage. Test fitted the port elevator horn on elevator. Still hits.
Mar 23
3.6hrs
Aligned the horz stabs/elevators. Aligned the elevator horns. Tacked then welded both horns on. Need to weld the other side of each horn.
Mar 25
1.5hrs
Welded up the second side on both elevators. Cleaned them up and fitted them back on the biplane.
.8hrs
Started working on the turtledeck again.
Mar 26
1.5hrs
Chiseled off the two lower stringers on both the port and starboard sides of the turtledeck. Will be replacing with new.
Mar 27
2.2hrs
Sand down and notch lower four turtledeck stringers.
Mar 29
1.9hrs
Decided the right way to re-work the lower stringers was to take off the lower transition ply. So, that's what I did. Took off the remaining lower stringers too.
Mar 31
1.4hrs
Glued on the first set of new turtledeck stringers.
Apr 1
1.4hrs
Glued on the remaining two turtledeck stringers.
.7hrs
Made new pattern for the lower transition ply. Spent half the time looking for the old one.
Apr 2
1.5hrs
Final prep of the turtledeck stringers; measured, cut and trimmed. Then started working out the back end of the stringer area.
.7hrs
Continued working out the back end area. Came to the conclusion of capping it again. Made a few test patterns. Still thinking on it.
Apr 3
1.3hrs
Figuring out the tail-cone for the turtledeck... or at least trying to.
Apr 12
1.4hrs
Making the new tail cone: patterns and cutting rough shapes.
Apr 16
1.1hrs
More work on the tail cone; fitting up the base of it to the fuselage.
Apr 17
2.2hrs
Tweaked the new sides for the tail cone then decided I wasn't happy with the look of them and re-made two more.
Apr 19
1.8hrs
Cut and fitted the two spline pieces for the tail cone area.
Apr 22
1.8hrs
Grind and file off excess weld (from the two turtledeck formers I cut off) and then cut/sanded/fitted up the glue blocks for the tail cone.
Apr
24
2hrs
Fitted up glue blocks, trimmed bottom ply transition, notched bottom of turtkedeck trans ply position.
2700 Hours !!!
Apr 27
3.5hrs
Sealed back sides of trans ply and glued into positon. Glued glue blocks onto tail cone base. Sealed backs of tail cone sides. Started looking at the tail wheel attachment and plans to see how it needs to be connected. Rought cut gussets for under horizontal stab rear attachment.
Apr 29
1.3hrs
Glued inside of tail cone base. Glued and tacked on sides to tail cone base.
May 1
3.5hrs
Modified tail cone by cutting out lower opening. Glued tail cone shell onto spline. Cut and sanded gussets for rear horizontal stab attach.
May 3
3.2hrs
Work on the tail cone; made tabs for attaching it to the fuselage and welded them on. Still one tab left to make. Tweaked/adjusted the back-end of the tail cone with a wood file.
May 6
2.1hrs
Made the rear-most tab for the tail cone and welded it on. Figured out the spacing of the stringers on the tail cone and marked it up.
May 8
1.9hrs
Cut the notches in the tail cone. Discovered that I need to feather the back-end of the six long turtledeck stringers. They won't work otherwise. Spent about 1/2 hour trying to figure out how I was going to feather these since they are already attached to the turtledeck.
May 10
3.9hrs
Feathered stringers on turtledeck. Drew patterns and rough cut stringer gussets.
May 11
2.2hrs
Worked on the back-end of the stringers for the turtledeck. Cut to length, etc. and added on "inserts". Finish cut gussets and sanded to shape. Cut and filed notches in gussets also.
May 12
2hrs
Trimmed and fitted the tabs for the stringers into the tail cone. Started figuring out the position of the stringers on the turtledeck so that I can glue the gussets in place.
May 15
3.7hrs
Measured and aligned the upper four stringers on the turtledeck. Needed to re-make eight of the gussets. Glued into place.
May 18
2.9hrs
Notched two lower turtledeck stringers. Worked on fitting up the eight additional turtledeck gussets.
May 19
2.5hrs
Made gussets for double-stringer.
May 20
1hr
Began looking at the wheels and brakes; assessing what I have and what I need to do with them.
May 22
.5hrs
Closer look at wheels and brakes. They're both 6.00-6 wheels with brakes for each... but they aren't matching ???
May 22
1.9hrs
Measured placement of stringers... positioned and glued on a few more turtledeck gussets.
May 24
3.3hrs
Aligned and glued the double-stringer gussets. Started then stopped making the glue blocks for the stringer channels (that I was originally thinking was how I would attach the rear ends of them). Accessed what needed to be done next.
May 16
1.9hrs
Finished up the turtledeck. Prepared the fuselage for figuring out the tailwheel attachment.
May 28
1.2hrs
Perepared fuselage for measuring angle and height for tailwheel.
2hrs
CAD work on figuring out length and angle of tailwheel. 45degree tailwheel
May 31
2hrs
Worked on DeltaCAD thinking through the tail wheel set-up. Comparing angles to existing set-up (photos I found online.)
4.9hrs
Aligned, tacked and finished welded the torque tube into the fuselage. Finsihed welded severeal weld clusters that I had left for when I would be able to turn the fuselage on it's side and back.
Giving it 110 percent (2753.1hrs). I'm at 110 percent of what I thought it would take to build the biplane... as of today.
Jun 3
2.2hrs
Created (8) new brackets to secure bracket that holds on the walking beam. Originally tried welding these on but wasn't happy with how it had to be welded.
Jun 5
2.2hrs
Finished working on the brackets then welded them on the fuselage.
Jun 7
2.5hrs
Made brackets for the reverse that I ended up not using. Wedled on the reverse brackets (since some of it was already finsihed welded).
Jun 8
3hrs
Laying out the instruments on the instrument panel so that I can figure out the size I need to make it. Cut and taped up a white model of it to try out in the biplane.
Jun 9
2.5hrs
Using DeltaCAD to figure out the rear cockpit buble size and shape. Which... is helping me figure out the size and shape openings on each of the cockpits.
1.8hrs
Measured and cut out front white model.
Jun 10
3.5hrs
Fitted up mock instrument panels (front needs a few changes). Rolled the beads on both the top and bottom panels for the upper fuel tank.
Jun 11
3.2hrs
More design work on the instrument panels. Making of final blanks.
Jun 12
2.2hr
Worked on putting the hinges on the rudder/tailpost. Confirmed the revised instrument panel layouts.
Jun 14
4.2hrs
Took a few measurements for the front instrument panel. Worked on aligning and welding on the three 3-pc hinges on the rudder/tailpost. Took forever aligning the rudder to the tailpost.
Jun 17
2.5hrs
Welded top and bottom of rudder. Notched, aligned and tack welded the two upper metal ribs on the rudder.
Jun 19
2.3hrs
Fitted up the lower metal ribs on the rudder. Finish welded all four onto rudder frame and front spar.
Jun 20
.9hrs
Layout of two sections of the instrument panels.
Jun 21
4.2hrs
Figured out the trim/servo tab connections and figured out what is needed to complete the task. Welded up the reverser bracket. Cut the Joy Sticks and fitted them up to the torque tube.
Jun 25
1hr
Re-laid out all instrument panels on 2024 T3 .o63.
Jun 26
1.9hrs
Made drill jig and drilled holes in stand-offs for mounting stringers.
Jun 29
3.4hrs
Made the two additional pieces for the trim servo tab area. They're ready to be welded on
Jul 1
2.4hrs
Notched both trim tabs for horns. Welded both onto trim tabs. Welded over mis-aligned hole in one of the stringer stand-offs.
Jul 3
4.2hrs
Ground down and re-welded the tab horns on the trim tabs. Closed up all the holes on both horizontal stabs.
2800 HOURS !!!
Jul 5
2.9hrs
Drilled the remaining holes in the stringer stand-offs. Left the rear most stringer connections un-drilled... until I have the stringers cut to size.
Jul 8
2.3hrs
Aligned and match drilled the three starboard stringers. Still need to drill the holes in the rear attach tabs and then match drill stringers to tabs.
Jul 10
2.2hrs
Did the same thing as above except to the three port side stringers.
Jul 12
2.7hrs
Again... same as above but did the belly stringers. Needed to notch two of the stringers for the lower, forward tailwire bracket.