Pomodoro

[Little Scrapper]

Made a pair of bending jigs for the H Stabilizer. Instead of doing one side at a time I decided to make a identical pair and mound them to the table. Different way of doing it seemed like fun.

Process.

Made a router table from scrap. Traced the router base on the plywood and mounted it then set in on top of a empty garbage can. Made a pattern. Routed out 4 identical piece from scrap. Routed a 3/8 cove bit on each of the four. Glued and screwed them.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Video update on my horizontal stabilizer.

Photos for those who don’t like videos.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Late night jam session in the shop blasting out the ribs for the horizontal stabilizer.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Welded the channels up and pulled the horizontal stabilizer from the table/jig. Flawless fit on the fuselage. Big milestone because it’s starting to look airplane ish now.

TIG welding with .035” 70s2 mig wire. 45 amps.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Today I built the elevator, tapered elevator channels, and welded it together. Went extremely well.......then ran out of gas.

Edit: I’m actually a bit sad because the metal fabricating is coming to a end soon and it will be on to the wings. I don’t want the metal work to end because I enjoy it so darn much.

 

[Little Scrapper]

1 year anniversary of the Baby Ace build today.

No photos, I’ll just comment and say it’s been a wonderful year and glad I’m building this airplane.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Was fortunate enough to swing by the shop today and start making those empennage hinges.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Video update this time. Lots of exciting changes and progress.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Managed to make the tail wheel parts today and was able to also weld and install it today. Pretty exciting day for my Little Pomodoro.

I received parts from Aircraft Spruce today after waiting a long time and not only was the order short it was wrong part numbers. So I need to fix that in the morning. No biggie. Plenty of parts to make to keep me busy.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Who’s ever reading this post, if you’re building a airplane and you need parts think far enough ahead to time it the best you can. I just tried placing another Aircraft Spruce order and every item I ordered was out of stock.

Have a great day!

 

[Little Scrapper]

Putting this tail together has been a fun adventure. Working out pretty well, constant measuring. Gonna put the fin together next.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Here’s a video update but it’s really just a little trick to use when TIG welding in those super rare tight spots.

I’ve been welding for almost 40 years and I’ve used this trick only twice so I highly doubt most would use it. I’m getting ready to use it a 3rd time and I doubt I’d use it again because it’s almost never required.

Anyhow, short video update. About 3 minutes.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Headed to vacation tomorrow to Sanford Florida to visit family so busy dealing with that but was fortunate today to be able to stop at the shop and do some work.

I made and attached the two mounting tabs on the horizontal stabilizer and mounted the bushing on the front of the fin tube. Here it is mocked up. It’s mounted on the tabs and I put some wood on the side and clamped it to hold position.

I now need to bend the top curve, weld it, make the fin channels and mount them and weld on the hinges. Lot’s of work really, a few hours at least. But here is where it will sit for 10 days. When I come back my plan is to wrap up the tail section and make a second Turtle Deck and side stringers. Boy will that be fun! At that point she’ll really look like a airplane!

 

[Little Scrapper]

Kristie and I decided to leave at 10:00 tonight on our road trip to Florida. So that’s basically the same as “I have some free time to have fun” and what’s more fun than airplane building?????

And it feels good too because I have to say, it really bothered me leaving for vacation knowing all I need to do is bend that darn fin. I hate loose ends with a passion. It’s irritating having the fin edge just hanging lose. Haha.

So that’s what I did in the last 2 hours. I supported the fin with braces and used a visual pattern and a torch. I just slowly worked the radius right on in to a near perfect fit. It was a bit tricky getting the angle off the radius to match the angle on the rudder but I ended up extremely close. Good enough for my eyes anyhow. Pictures probably don’t show it well but it turned out very nice.

So that’s a good feeling to have that done before heading out tonight. When I come back I’ll be putting those channels on, mounting the rudder hinges and welding in those tail wire bushings.

What a fun part of the process it is to build a tail of a airplane from scratch.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Been a couple months. I’ve been very busy but that’s no real excuse for not putting in a few hours on my airplane. The good news is I’ve been focusing on weight loss and it’s working quite well for me, I’m averaging about 2-3 pounds a week weight loss and I’ve never felt better. I’m doing this because I know I need to fit in my Baby Ace and lighter weight is safer etc.

Also, I have a customer who is 81 and his health is starting to fail pretty bad. He’s a old pilot (Luscombe) and a retired sheet metal worker. He loves my Baby Ace so much he gave me his old Tennsmith U48 and I hope to pick it up in the next few days. His name is Bill and he’s a genuine good person, a real old school blue collar guy which is my type of friend.


Other than that not too much is happening. I’ve been looking at some project threads here and it’s great seeing work get done.

 

[Little Scrapper]

August! This is where my plumbing business starts to slow up a bit and that means I’m back to working on the Baby Ace!

The tail section is not done and that needs to be completed and buttoned up so I can move on to the Turtle Deck. So that’s what I’m working on this week and weekend.

 

[Little Scrapper]

Second time is a charm perhaps. Building the turtle deck a second time because I wasn’t happy with the first one.

Transferred the drawing on to the mahogany plywood using carbon paper and brass pin with a rounded tip.
Today I cut out the formers/bulkheads. Some sanding and fine tuning and I can temporarily mount these and start setting the stringers…..which I need to make again.