Latest Work Completed Mantua, New Jersey
Original Site:
September 2004
E-mail: usav8or@yahoo.com
Three-piece upper wing... strong as an OX.
February 27, 2010
Mallomars...
where the hell are the Mallomars?
Paitently waiting for the Mallomars, er, Sitka Spruce to arrive so I can start crafting the Upper Wing Center Section.
March 23, 2010
Mallomars have arrived...
Quite awhile ago.
Paitently waiting for me to get started. If I had put as much time into the actual build, over these past few months, as I have been thinkin' about building... I'd be quite a bit further along than I am.
Me thinks this is some sort of writers block !
Ya know, I've really learned a lot about myself over these past few months. Here I thought that head of steam I had going for 3 1/2 years would never lose it momentum forward. What, chalk it up to being human ? Not giving in that easy... as you can see I've been fighting this thing for awhile. What is it ? Hmmm... I don't know yet... or I'd have killed it.
Once I get past this... It's FULL STEAM AHEAD for the rest of the ride !
(now where did I set those plans...)
March 28, 2010
Diving head first...
and the water is a little cold.
Jumped back into building today... head first. Well, looking back on all this time I HAVEN'T been building, I guess I wouldn't say I'm jumping back into building. Let's say that I've started building again. I'm happy with that.
A little over four hours of time was added to the Build Log today. All sorts of little schtuff happening... all for the sole intent of getting the Upper Wing Center Section made.
First thing on the agenda was to build the jigs for the Inboard and Outboard ribs. Ripped the 1/2" MDF down to make the top of the jigs. Ripped four additional 2" pieces down to attach to the bottom to keep the tops from warping; glued and screwed.
OK... need to look over the plans to see what size the cap strips are for these guys; check. Ok... need to look over all those pages I wrote up figuring out what piece of spruce gets used for what part of the Upper Wing Center Section; I think I figured it out. I'm using some of the existing spruce that I picked up from Gus years ago. Needed to rip those down; .75" stock into four pieces of 1.25" wide and four pieces of .625" wide. If I didn't figure it out, it looks like I'll be buying a few more pieces of spruce.
Last thing I did before closing up shop was to make a bending board for bending those big ass cap strips. I'll either need to soak these puppies in hot water or steam them before attaching to the bending jig.
Damn, it feels good to put in a good days work on the biplane... Damn good.
March 29, 2010
Life...
watching it or having one ?...
Second night in a row... and for an extended period of time. What's this you say ? I'm asking that same question myself.
Got home the usual time. Exercise. Feed the pup. Feed me. Hmmm... this "Life" show on Discovery looks pretty interesting. Maybe I'll sit and watch it... instead of having a "Life."
Enough said. Down to the work shop to work on the Upper Wing Center Section. And tonight's plan: work on those cap strips.
I took Jim's suggestion and will rip the cap strips down into thinner strips and glue them up; similar to what I will be doing to some other pieces on this center section. Quarter inch strips cut, while making saw dust with the 1/8" blade. The math ain't workin' out where the wood I cut yesterday is going to make those same pieces today. Not my concern. I'll just need to buy a few more pieces of spruce if I don't have enough for some other piece.
Needed to re-cut the bending jig. When you steam and bend a piece of wood you need to account for some "spring back." When you're glueing it up in the bend, no "spring back." So... the allowance I made on the other jig last night... ain't gonna be any good to me now.
New jig made. Quite a few sheets of wax paper. Six, three inch lines of T-88; three of each (just the right amount.) Eight C-clamps. Two hours... and I have what looks like a nice set of 5/8" top and bottom cap strips. Tomorrow... we'll see.
March 30, 2010
Writer's block ?...
Me thinks not !
Time got away from me tonight. Looked at the Comcast box and it read 9:39; getting kinda late to start working on the biplane. Hell... I worked on it the last two nights, I'm doing pretty good considering, but the thought of working on the biplane kept nagging at me... I look again and now its close to 10PM. Not a good sign at all. Actually the sign said "Closed For The Night."
10:40...
thinking of nothing BUT working on the biplane... feels good. I think this is the same feeling a writer has when they just can't NOT write. Someone/something is screaming at them to put what they are saying down on paper. Guess that biplane was screaming at me... wanting to fly sooner than later. She's been good to me. I owe it to her. I gave into her relentless nudging.
I took the short walk down to the work shop and I inspect my earlier work. The two Jerry-made cap strips, from last night, look real nice. (thanks Jim) Looks like I'll be doing the same tonight. Cut the necessary 5/8" x 1/4" strips. Mixed up the T-88. Lots of wax paper and clamps... two more completed.
Now if I could just continue to listen to whatever/whoever... I'll be flying her in no time.
March 31, 2010
Another nite...
of makin' stuff !
Not much new to write about tonight. Nothing new... except I've been working on this puppy for four straight nights!!!
A few months ago I would have thought... ah, so what. (actually I probably wouldn't have thought) Today... I'm thinkn' (yeah!) I've got that full head of steam building up. Feelin' good.
More work on the cap strips for the Upper Wing Center Section. I have both of the 5/8" wide cap strips completed. Now I'm working on the 1 1/4" wide cap strips. Cut a new rib jig for the deeper cap strips, then a repeat of what I've been doing for the past three days. No sense in writing it again... I'm not here to fill up space.
Here's a photo of the 1 1/4" cap strips in the jig, glued and clamped.
April 8, 2010
Taking off...
too much of a good thing.
I really lathered the T-88 on those laid-up cap strips. Too much is better than too little... in the case of using T-88. That old saying that I can still hear my 3rd grade Art Teach say is full of balony with T-88. "A little dab will do you." only if you're trying to save a few dollars. We're talking saving one's ass with this stuff.
The excess that is so good... for squeeze out... isn't so good when glueing the birch ply sides onto it. So, off comes the squeezed out glue, at the expense of time. And, take your time. No sense in rushing it (if you have all this excess glue on the cap strips, that is) after spending all that time making them. To rush and screw one or two or three of them up... foolish. Hasn't worked for me yet.
Two down, six to go.
April 9, 2010
Same stuff...
as last night.
More of the same... same as last night. (I'm reading that and it makes me feel pretty damn good. The same as last night... as in there was a last night and a night before and a night before... It's taking on a life of itself again.)
It's the chipping away at it every night... as much time as you can put into it, that gets the project done. A builder thinks like that. I just recently read a post on the Yahoo Tailwind Forum... something to the effect that he drills one hole in a piece, if thats all he has time for. The next time he works on the project, it's one less hole that is already drill.
My friend Howard was like that. Said... if he only had 15 minutes to put towards the plane that night, he put in 15 minutes. We started about the same time with our projects... he finished back in, I think it was, 2004 or so. You're a good man Howard. You're an inspiration to me.
So no matter how busy your life is... there is always time to steal away to drill that one hole, sand that one piece, figure out that one thing.
Tonight's one thing was finishing up the sanding off of the excess squeeze out on the cap strips. One point three hours later and they're done and set to the side... waiting on the additional pieces I need to make before putting the Upper Wing Center Section together. Here's a shot of the finished, sanded pieces. Ain't they purty?
I'll leave you with Dan's (bigblackmastiff), on the Biplane Forum, signature on his posts:
"Building an airplane is a lot like eating an elephant. Just keep chewing." -Guthrie
April 12, 2010
A pretty small somehow...
is better than no somehow.
Stealing away some time from a busy weekend and a busy Monday night. Don't want to get back into the routine of doing nothing on the biplane.
The weekend was non-stop activities. Yeah, the usual gotta keep up the appearance of the house type of stuff, but then other things were packed in right behind it; some planned, some unexpected. I didn't get to take a breath until Sunday night, around 10:30. Saturday morning I told myself I had to move this build along somehow... no matter how small that somehow would be.
Knew that I was working on the Upper Wing Center Section, but needed to decide what I needed/wanted to do next. Pulled out the plans and took a looksee. Lets see... I have all those upper and lower cap strips formed and cleaned up, the nose ribs all cut and ready (except routing/cuting out the centers on them - guess they ain't ready)... next thing on the "easy list" would be to cut four each of the three different size trailing edges for the ribs. There aren't twelve trailing edges, these 1/4" pieces are doubled up to make 1/2" thick trailing edges.
Saturday was the day I took a look at the plans. Monday was the night I cut the blanks out for the patterns. (didn't get started until 10:13PM) I'll use these blanks to route four each of three sizes.
Tomorrow I'll get the Jerry-made routing table set up and hopefully cut and route them all out... then on to the next thing. Now that I'm thinking about it... I may need to cut out the blanks, glue them up into 1/2" thick pieces, then route them out on Wednesday.
April 13, 2010
Savin' time...
patterns for more than one piece.
Back working with wood again... saving that time by making three patterns for twelve pieces that need to be made.
Last night it took almost an hour to cut and shape three pieces; three patterns.
Tonight it took 1.4 hours to rough cut and glue up twelve pieces. Probably another hour tomorrow to route these to three pairs of identical trailing edges; six 1/2" thick pieces (actually twelve 1/4" pieces cut and shaped). A total of 2.4 hours compared to approximately four hours, which would include glueing them up. And they wouldn't all be alike.
I like the math. A few hours here and there add up over the course of a project.
April 15, 2010
Routing...
pieces of the puzzle.
I let one day slip by and I feel like it might be the begining of another hiatus... A good thing I suppose. It'll keep me from allowing too many days to slip away (I hope.)
Long day yesterday... a one-way drive out to Western PA of 183 miles... same length back. A 2PM appointment that I figured would last an hour... turned out to be a VERY good meeting lasting a little over 2 hours. This put me back home at close to 7:30.
Like I said... long day... nuff said for yesterday. Now on to today. One of my standard long days... only the typical commute of 36 miles each way... it's been closer to 1 1/2 hours each way recently. Anyways, plenty of time to put some time on the build. Got a start around 9PM... and got to work.
Those trailing edge pieces should be dry by now, it's been a little over 48 hours since glueing them up (read with some sarcasim.) Yeah, they were dry yesterday, but we know what happened to yesterday. Routing shouldn't have taken more than an hour... like I said, it shouldn't have. But, when you need to put together things you've taken apart, like I do so often to be able to work around in the space alotted for my workshops, things take a bit longer.
That little Jerry-rigged router table I made has come in handy more times than I'm going to count... well worth the extra time to take apart and put back together and take apart and put back... What this is all leading up to is that the hour I figured it taking to route those six trailing edge pieces of the ribs took closer to 1 1/2 hours. If I had me a nice big shop with all those nice big tools just waiting to be used... well, you get the point, again. Hell, I'm not complaining. I'm happy to have the room and tools that I do have.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I liked that I was working with wood again. Loved cutting and welding up the fuselage... and continue to love it, but working in wood, while making a mess with all the dust, is a lot cleaner. Love the smell of it too. A lot easier to control the shape that you want also.
I stood back after routing these pieces and my mind wandered... thinking of what to do next. I visualized the set of plans and wondered what piece I would need to create; what would be the next piece of the puzzle for this Upper Wing Center Section ?
April 19, 2010 Break it apart...
it's easier to chew.
How long has it been... ???? Tell, me how long has it been since I've been pondering this next part of the project; this project of tackling the Upper Wing Center Section ?
If I can only remember... If I traveled forward in time to the next "new" project I could tell myself that I've been through this before and that there's no sense in stalling 'cause when you bite it off in small pieces, it's managable. A "You've been there before." pep talk.
Writing like this reminds me of the book "Illusions" by Richard Bach. Always been a fan of his... teachings. Always liked "Illusion". The modern day barnstormer, white scarf, leather helmet and flying goggles... who wouldn't like it ? But I knew there was more to it than that. Hey... I'm getting off subject here.
I'm thinking... something a little bit easier than appearing in the future would be to write a note. Hey, novel idea. Or hey, how about remembering the umpteenth times you've been down this same road ? But, where's the fun in that ?
Stalling ?, pondering ?, understanding ? or whatever it may be... once you get your head around it, break it down into those smaller bites, it's a lot easier to swallow.
I'm sure my long term memory will go it's separate way after I've dug into working on the Upper Wing Center Section, to be forgotten until I've once again traveled down a parallel path on another one of the biplane's projects.
April 20, 2010 Is it me...
or my long term memory ?
Must have been a fluke; me remembering to do something, or should I say, not do something. Or maybe it was the fact that I was just talking about memories, or lack there of, that spurred me to remember something from a past project. (I just read that... and it may make no sense to you at all)
(and yeah I know... just get to the point, right?)
Worked on cutting and fitting the pieces for the Upper Wing Center Section Inboard Rib tonight. A little bit more than cutting and fitting the cap strips. I first needed to rip down the vertical cap strips to fit the height of the laid-up cap strips I made earlier. (make a note of that - cut all the cap strips that you need for that particual rib at the same time... it'll save you the hassle, and time, of matching the height at a later time)
For me, it was the first time I needed to rip cap strips. I've only needed to use 1/4x1/4 caps that I've purchase from Aircraft Spruce. So... I'm just tellin' ya.
Sorry for the side track, but as you know, I do that a lot. Now what was it I was saying ?... oh yeah, long term memory kicking in tonight.
Was working hard at getting all the pieces ripped and cut/shaped to size for the first of the four ribs I would be making for this project; two each of two. Wanted to get it glued up and capped with a sheet of birch ply.
As I'm shaping the last few pieces I get the oddest of feelings, sorta like a de'ja' vu; you know, like I was here before at some point. Hey, nothing new I thought, I've cut and shaped many a cap strip. But as I was completing the fit of the last vertical cap strip I could almost hear someone shouting "Don't glue it up!"
What ?
"Don't glue up the rib until you've used these pieces for patterns for the next rib. It'll save you a lot of time!"
Was that me talking to myself ? or my long term memory kicking in ?
In any event, I'm glad I finally listened to what I was saying. (doesn't happen enough) Didn't complete the rib tonight, but I'm sure, I know, I've saved quite a bit of time cutting/trimming the pieces for the next one.
April 22, 2010 A little here and there...
is a lot !
Saved time by using those cap strips as patterns... nothing
earth shattering as fars as time goes.
Guess I did the second set in about half the time, but when
you're talking that small of amount of time, it ain't no biggie
when viewed by itself. But when you add up all
those little nothings over the life of the build, NOW
you're talking savings !
thinking... just thinking...
come home... run the pup... eat... work on the biplane.
Tonight it reminded me of that song by Harry Chapin: And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then
Never had any kids... now that I'm older, I kinda wished I did. I'm talkin' about my pup here, but I'm not just talkin' about pups. Need to devote time to the biplane, but we need to devote time to the ones around us as well. The look on Ammo's face when he came down and saw me working on the biplane again... this song popped into my head. Can only imagine what it would be like if my son or daughter came down and gave me that look.
Ahhh... the build is going to take a little bit longer, but hey, we're enjoying the process, aren't we ? We enjoy those around us just as much.
So that "at least 15 minutes of time" you can steal away for the biplane each night... steal away time for other things too. A little here... and there... will mean a lot.