Latest Work Completed Mantua, New Jersey
Original Site:
September 2004
E-mail: usav8or@yahoo.com
The Radical Radial Fuselage.
December 30, 2015 Thick with thin...
a constant dance.
Considering I only welded on the twelve airfoil shapes... I put in a lot of hours today.
As I had mentioned yesterday, and I think it goes without saying but I'm saying it anyways... it's a little bit of a pain in the arse... welding .o28 tubing to .o90 tubing.
No looooong weld lines. They were all short and mostly difficult to reach. I needed to plan the series of welds: seeing what I could reach from that side at that angle before moving onto the next. If not planned right I was either resting my arm on a piece of metal that was warm (read that as HOT !!!) of having to go back and hit that area again from that same angle. Luck had it that I planned it right from the standpoint of not having to come back to weld from that position again... BUT, I did have the opportunity to rest my elbow on a few hot spots.
As is the case with welding a thin piece of tubing to a thick piece of tubing, I had the opportunity to eat up a lot of .o28 thick metal. I had to constantly work the flame of the torch to get enough heat onto the puddle without getting too much where it would begin to eat the thin tubing. It was a constant dance.
I broke the weld up into several sessions: allowing the tubing to cool enough that I could work on another area of the gear.
They're both welded up now. Just a matter of going back and filing/sanding smooth the welds (which, by the way you don't do on structural welds).
December 31, 2015 A little filing...
and sanding.
Last check of welds of airfoil tubes on main gear... Only needed to slightly file (these aren't structural welds) two or three of the welds and was finished.