I opened up a hole in each of the forward ribs in the vertical stab for the installation of a 3/4″ conduit up to the top of the VS. A cushion clamp will secure it mid-span on the forward spar of the VS. Who knows, I might want to add a flight camera some day :).
I’m now dimpling all of the structure and skins for the horizontal and vertical stabilizer.
I finished drilling and deburring the vertical stabilizer. I also did the little slice & dice modification on the loser nose rib of the vertical stab for the Showplanes Fastback kit. It requires that you trim the bottom of the skin up at an angle. This means that you have to move the rib which requires either a little reshaping or fabricating a new rib. I chose the former. No big deal.
I got our APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System) wikipedia
parts and began setting up our radio (Tanya is the one with the FCC license required to operate it). It consists of a small voltage regulator, a digital radio transmitter and GPS decoding/encoding unit, and a GPS receiver antenna. I got it all wired up on the bench and configured via a serial interface on the computer. It requires a null modem cable for programming but I didn’t feel like tracking one down, either in my stash of computer cables or going to the store to get one, so I just whipped one up from scratch on the bench. It worked fine. Power application seems to work fine but I haven’t had enough time to get it outside to acquire a GPS lock so we can test it transmitting position. This should be a fun toy.
UPDATE: I loaded up a 12v battery and the transmitter and drove it to work this morning. It worked great! map link
I’m in the process of drilling the right HS. One more evening and it will be ready for deburring. Tanya is in the process of deburring the skin for the left side. Nothing real exciting. I’ve only been working on it about an hour and a half each evening. I guess you could say that I’m slowly ramping up.
I decided we’re going to try just pulling all of the blue plastic off of the skins instead of removing strips with a soldering iron. We’ll see how it works out.
I finished drilling all of the left half of the horizontal stabilizer. I think I’m starting to get my building mojo back. Feels good. I reaffirmed the notion that dull drill bits suck and sharp new ones are better. Note to self: get more drill bits. I found that I was more comfortable and efficient not dwelling too much on the vans instructions. I realized that I was spending more time trying to figure out exactly what the instructions were wanting me to do and in what sequence, than just doing what I knew needed to be done and how. So, I think I’m going to try just reading through the instructions once or twice for a particular assembly looking for big gotcha’ stuff, then get to work doing it “my way”. We’ll see if this works out.
It is finally time to actually begin construction! Today I pulled out the horizontal stabilizer parts and got down to business. Ahhhhh… Like a good drug, drilling holes in aluminum, layout parts, cut it on the band saw, square it up on the disk sander, polish it to a satin finish on the scotchbright wheel.
Tanya went and picked up the fastback kit from the shipper from Showplanes, she is the one with the truck :). It was crated very nicely and arrived without damage. We immediately inventoried the kit. I am very impressed with the contents, quality, and documentation. Some of the parts really put Vans to shame. Things like the exterior canopy latch handle are beautifully machined. The fiberglass parts are very nice. The documentation looks very complete and includes many inline pictures in full color. The kit now comes with the “optional” roll bar standard.
more pictures in the “image catalog“
Ok, I’ve just been savoring setting up shop for the state that it will probably maintain for the next few years. It is my opinion to get everything all setup just the way I want it (second time around) so lessons learned from the past can be implemented up front. The shop space is all set. The central A/C is nothing short of heavenly, the lights totally rock, the circuit switching for variable light is perfect (not too much, not too little). We finally got the air compressor bolted to the floor with four 1/2″ bolts. That was fun. The fixed work benches, cabinets, and integrated tool chests are finished. I’m very happy with how that all worked out.
I brought one of my 2′x5′ EAA build benches back from the hangar and built one more. So, I’ll be building with the same build bench configuration as last time. I re-skinned the top of the old bench with a new piece of 3/4″ MDF. This time, I put a light coat of clear polyurethane on the MDF just to seal it. If you set a sweating glass of ice water on MDF, it will swell drastically.
I put the bench grinder with scotchbright wheel on a Harbor Freight grinder stand this time. I think that is going to work much better than having it bolted to the bench. I added some very shallow (~6″) shelves above the two main fixed benches. I don’t know exactly what for, but I had a similar setup in a “previous life” and they were very handy.
I think we’re finally going to have enough storage this time. More cabinets and fewer open shelves to keep the aluminum dust from covering everything. We are finally getting around to actually putting things away and finding a spot for everything. When that is done, the last thing to do is build a small primer booth. My last attempt a few years ago failed. I’m going to try that again to see if I can do a different configuration that will work this time.
I’m holding the shop pictures until we get it cleaned up. Soon. I hope to be working with airplane parts by this weekend! Finally. Oh, yeah, and our Showplanes Fast Back kit should be here this week.
More pictures in the “image catalog”.
We got the wing kit inventoried and all the parts put away in the parts room. I’ve made more progress in the garage setup. I got all of the fixed work benches done, except for paint, and the compressed air plumbed with copper pipe. There are still a couple more cabinets to build, then I’ll be able to move on to setting up a spray primer vent fan assembly in the back window.
The wing kit arrived. Ah, those big beautiful crates. We’re in the process of doing inventory. Probably a few more weeks before we get started on the empennage.
