I'm hoping to start an ongoing thread about clever ideas relevant to airplane building. When I was a kid the R/C model magazines called thiese "Hints and Kinks", but nowdays the hipsters and Millennials would surely call them "hacks".
Just like the newly re-created version of "The Gong Show", the worldwide HBA brain trust gets to decide on a vote of "Clever or Clobber" !
So I'll put my head on the clobber block first, because I had an idea this evening in the hangar that I am going to test out as soon as I get to a hardware store. For the record, this idea may or may not have been suggested or published previously, but I've never seen it, and so to my best knowledge this is an original idea from the foggy fjords of my mind.
I have a neat little cordless drill/driver that I use all the time. A lot of the fabricating and/or installing operations I do with it requires me to change from a drill bit to a screwdriver bit and back, or changing between a drill, a reamer, a countersink, or a deburring tool. This evening I was sitting up on a ladder, and there was nowhere to put a little work tray to have all the bits and fasteners up there with me. My little plastic cup with all this stuff kept falling off the ladder.
The big idea was that I would glue several small magnets on the drill itself, which would allow me to have two or three different drilling and driving bits right where I needed them, plus a few fasteners. The bits and pieces would not need to sit in a cup, or baby food jar, or tray, and they couldn't be easily knocked over or fall to the ground. They also couldn't fall into somewhere and jam up flight controls, or poke holes through fabric.
With this system, if I needed to install a Tinnerman Clip Nut and sheet metal screw into an aluminum panel, I could have the center punch, the bits, the clip nuts, and the fasteners all there and save a bunch of repetitive movements and effort.
What say ye... Clever or Clobber?
Just like the newly re-created version of "The Gong Show", the worldwide HBA brain trust gets to decide on a vote of "Clever or Clobber" !
So I'll put my head on the clobber block first, because I had an idea this evening in the hangar that I am going to test out as soon as I get to a hardware store. For the record, this idea may or may not have been suggested or published previously, but I've never seen it, and so to my best knowledge this is an original idea from the foggy fjords of my mind.
I have a neat little cordless drill/driver that I use all the time. A lot of the fabricating and/or installing operations I do with it requires me to change from a drill bit to a screwdriver bit and back, or changing between a drill, a reamer, a countersink, or a deburring tool. This evening I was sitting up on a ladder, and there was nowhere to put a little work tray to have all the bits and fasteners up there with me. My little plastic cup with all this stuff kept falling off the ladder.
The big idea was that I would glue several small magnets on the drill itself, which would allow me to have two or three different drilling and driving bits right where I needed them, plus a few fasteners. The bits and pieces would not need to sit in a cup, or baby food jar, or tray, and they couldn't be easily knocked over or fall to the ground. They also couldn't fall into somewhere and jam up flight controls, or poke holes through fabric.
With this system, if I needed to install a Tinnerman Clip Nut and sheet metal screw into an aluminum panel, I could have the center punch, the bits, the clip nuts, and the fasteners all there and save a bunch of repetitive movements and effort.
What say ye... Clever or Clobber?
