What did you do on your airplane project today?

[N804RV]

Fuel lines are done, firewall flanges are sealed. Ready to start riveting!

 

[Toobuilder]

Just did the flight after moving the cooling pressure port to a more representative location (within the inlet duct). The pressure delta between the airbox and plennum still favors the airbox, but is now only one inch of water. That will be less than a tenth of an inch HG - essentially unmeasurable on my MP indications, so its looking like the airplane is going to loose the induction scoop.

 

[Marc W]

Finished disassembling the VW today. The crankshaft journals have a corrugated surface from the shrapnel going through the bearings. I measured the #2 journal and it is in spec. -exactly 2.165". I will start cleaning parts tomorrow and continue measuring. Right now I am inclined to polish the journals, put new bearings in it and reassemble if the rest of the journals are in spec. I could have it reground but I might end up with something worse than I have now. I have had very inconsistent results from auto machine shops. They have screwed up more than one part for me before.

 

[n45bm]

Today I picked up the wing ribs, Stab ribs and Rudder ribs (VP1) that a local shop cut for me on a CNC. I feel like I got an airplane model for Christmas.

That's too kool. Reminds me of the Sterling model airplane kits of old, with the die-crushed balsa parts, though these parts look more like the current model parts that are laser cut. Could you elaborate on on the process of how you did this? Questions I have are what software do they work with, do they need drawings or computer files? costs and where do you find these types of shops? Thanks.

 

[Marc W]

I had a few more pieces to take out of the VW case. The oil pressure relief valve was a real problem to get out. Getting the threaded plug out just took a breaker bar but getting the piston out was a puzzler. It was stuck and neither a magnet nor any amount of tapping and rapping on the case got it to move. I ended up using a 1/2" tap to grab it. The tap worked like a charm. It dug in just enough before the piston broke loose to be able to pull it out. The piston is scored on the sides and the magnet collected steel chips down in the hole.

I consulted the books and Bob Hoover and determined that my engine has not had the HVX mods done. The original soft plugs were still in the oil galleys so I spent some time digging for tools and getting set up to pull them. I have them all out except for 3 small ones. I wanted to get all the plugs out so I can make sure the oil passages are clean given the fact that this engine had a lot of metal chips circulating at one time. I didn't find much metal but there are a few flakes still lurking in the crannies.

 

[David H]

That's too kool. Reminds me of the Sterling model airplane kits of old, with the die-crushed balsa parts, though these parts look more like the current model parts that are laser cut. Could you elaborate on on the process of how you did this? Questions I have are what software do they work with, do they need drawings or computer files? costs and where do you find these types of shops? Thanks.

Another Volksplane Builder put together the DXF files and shared them on the Volksplane builder's group. A local University set up an Entrepreneur Shop space with shared equipment (Maker Spaces) . I approached the CNC instructor, hoping a student that may want to try this and I got lucky that the instructor was excited about making airplane parts, so he did it at his cost.

 

[Marc W]

I pulled the rest of the soft plugs and did some random measuring of the bearings and journals. I didn't find anything out of spec but I need to clean everything up before I do any serious measuring.

Beyond that I pulled the poorly hung entrance door to my shop out and trimmed the frame and started to rehang it. It didn't close well. Whenever it snows and blows I have a snowdrift inside the shop. It is also expensive to heat the great outdoors. The money I save on gas for heat I can spend on the airplane!

 

[Marc W]

I checked my crankshaft more thoroughly today. I am going to have it ground. The #3 main journal and the rod journal next to it are badly scored. They are the closest to the oil pump so I suppose they got more shrapnel through them. The oil pump looks fine.

I finished hanging the door. It closes much nicer now! Still have to reinstall the trim and put some new weatherstripping on it.

 

[Toobuilder]

I built a calibrated airflow vane to show me the true "zero" AoA for my gear leg fairings. I'm going to clamp this device to the leg, fly, film the vane position, then transfer that position to the fuselage, and set the fairings to that same "zero" position

 

[Victor Bravo]

I built a calibrated airflow vane to show me the true "zero" AoA for my gear leg fairings. I'm going to clamp this device to the leg, fly, film the vane position, then transfer that position to the fuselage, and set the fairings to that same "zero" position

Because of the intersection of the gear leg and lower fuselage, how likely is it that the "zero AoA" at the middle and bottom of the gear is a few degrees different than at the top of the gear where it meets the fuselage? It would be interesting to see if the ultimate solution is a "twisted" fairing.

You could compare the vane position (vane at the mid-span of the fairing) and oil or tufts on the fuselage, to see if there is any significant difference to pursue.

 

[Toobuilder]

Certainly considered that Bill, and this contraption I have should be able to characterize any point along the leg. In all likelihood, the entire fairing will be set to align with the most significant area of influence (which I'm guessing is mid span). The data will tell the tale.

 

[Geraldc]

Had some cowlings to fold a tapered curve on and my rollers were too short so we went to the redneck workshop to do it.
Loader bucket as workbench.
Had a u channel on bottom and a pipe clamped at the small radius end as a fulcrum and the gently pulled the pipe down and worked around the larger radius.
Now just the flutes to do and fit the panels.

 

[Victor Bravo]

Ridge Runner 2

Got a good price, so I bought a set of used 6" Matco wheels and brakes to replace the cable operated brakes that came with the project. This will allow me to use 8.00 x 6 Carlisle golf cart tires, all the way up to those big 21" 8.00 x 6 light weight bush tires.

 

[gtae07]

Trimmed some fuel pump support stiffeners that were excessively deep and ran a few wire conduits under my center cover, in the room created by said trimmed conduits
Terminated one end of my main bus power wire
Did a lot of puzzling over how to get wires from the wings to the fuselage - in ignorance I made some decisions a long time ago with pitot and AOA tube routing that’s now biting me in the butt
Redid the trim servo wire routing in my left aileron - I never was really happy with it and I found a much better idea searching VAF archives.
Slightly lengthened the slots on my alternator bracket parts. Now the alternator finally lines up with the flywheel groove. Still need spacers and a good bolt.
Bent up my alternator tension bracket (still have to drill a new hole and cut it to length).

Next:
Finish wire conduits
Finish fabbing fuse panels
Start running wires
Make alternator spacers and bushings

 

[Toobuilder]

Flew the gear leg "truth source" vane today. Very solid data. Should be easy to translate to the fuselage and get the fairings indexed.

 

[Toobuilder]

Projected a laser line on the fuselage and it looks like my old, "carefully measured with string lines" fairing location disagrees with the "truth line" by over a half inch at the TE. That's a significant influence at 200 knots considering how big the fairings are.

 

[cblink.007]

Not necessarily project related but finally have my new workspace ready for setup here in Maryland, and ordered all the boadboard blocks, epoxy and glass for the full scale plugs for the prototype.

On a side note, I found a unique spin recovery method with the model, but need to validate under a dynamically scaled condition, as we flew this point at 'typical model airplane weight'! Flight testing is fun!!

 

[Cass256]

Finally finished the rotating wing stands and got one mounted. It's at a good height for me since I'm tall.

(Griplockties for added security, was originally gonna use paracord but couldn't find it!)

I messed up though, the center of rotation isn't aligned with the balance point of the wings (I didn't check it before hand, instead just cut even-length pipes between the spars). I'll most likely make some form of rotation lock instead of redoing the whole PVC bracket.

 

[Victor Bravo]

Cass, we need to talk about how clean that shop is...it's an affront to the rest of us!

 

[Cass256]

Cass, we need to talk about how clean that shop is...it's an affront to the rest of us!

I just spent a week cleaning it, and I'm still hardly halfway done! No doubt when I'm done it won't stay that way for long, anyhow