March 8th, 2010
Ok, status still pretty much looks like the last entry, but I think I started getting over my building hump this weekend… What has been the hold up? Well, I have been spending the last month and a half looking at the firewall, attempting to hatch a plan for cabin side insulation. I have materials that I’m pretty happy with, but physical attachment has been a little more challenging to come up with something I liked. So, I’ve made some brackets, parts, etc., attempting to slug down that road. Every couple of days I would shuffle out to the garage and look and think about it for a while…
I’ve finally decided to put the insulation work away for a while and move on for now. Maybe I’ll revisit it, maybe not.
So, now on to the center section. I spent some time machining a center control bracket and getting the next set of parts out. Moving on 
.
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January 14th, 2010
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December 24th, 2009
This is the fun part. A freshly primed batch of parts just waiting to be riveted together. The primer dust has been cleaned off of most surfaces in the shop (Thanks to Tanya) and fuselage part assembly has started.
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December 23rd, 2009
I hate primer prep. Wash, acid etch, rinse, clean…
I got the primer booth set back up. That took all of 10 minutes.
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December 18th, 2009
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November 27th, 2009
I declare the wings finished. Tanya and I spent a few more hours riveting bottom skins over the Thanksgiving holiday. I’m glad I’m done bucking rivets blind for a while. All pre-rigging of control surfaces has been done. When they come back out of storage, the only things left to do are wing tip fiberglass, run plumbing for the pitot tube, and of course wiring. I left one end of each of the long push tubes unfinished so I can do a perfect length when the wings are pre fit with the fuselage.
Once we finished riveting, I made another full inspection of the results and made sure I had completed everything I wanted to before moving them. Then Tanya and I hauled both wings upstairs for storage. This was quite a trick since our stairs turn about 130 degrees mid way up. We lifted each wing up over our heads and up we went. Not light going up the stairs with it over your head. It is a good thing Tanya is strong. She held up her end just fine. I’m probably going to have to remove the tanks to lighten them up a little to get them back down. Oh well, we have a couple years before we reach that point. So they’re now placed for their long rest while we get started on the fuselage.
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November 23rd, 2009
We spent a couple more hours riveting bottom wing skins. One or two more rivet sessions and we’ll have them all stitched up.
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November 16th, 2009
I finished the wiring for the rotary phase converter to power the mill and have power to the machine. I pulled off the power cutoff switch for some serious degreasing before hooking things back up. I started going through the lube system before doing much else. I found every single way oil metering orifice in the one-shot lube system clogged. There is no good way to clean these things out as they have a little filter and check valve in them. I’ve ordered new ones along with a few other missing machine parts.
Oh, and Tanya and I actually got a couple of hours worth of bottom wing skin riveting done this weekend too. Only one skin left to rivet before moving the wings for storage.
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November 12th, 2009
The machine is finally in its final resting place. Whew… It took Tanya and I another two hours to get it down from the shop crane and placed. The deal is that at the boom reach that the crane was at for 1.5ton, the base of the machine wouldn’t fit between the legs. Keep in mind, this is a 2000 pound machine. You don’t just push it around while swinging on the hook and make it work. So I chopped up a bunch of lumber to stack cribbing to set it down on, above the shop crane legs. We moved the shop crane out of the way and the fun began. I don’t have any pictures, but we spent the next 1.5hrs lowering the cribbing 3/4″ at a time on each end. My new 6′ lever dolly was the primary tool for all of these operations. We couldn’t have done this without it. Slow and steady, one block of wood at a time, we lowered it to the floor, total distance about 8.5″. Once on the floor on pipe, we rotated the machine and rolled it into place about 4′. Done! I must say that I’m pretty pleased with how it all worked out. Nothing got damaged and nobody got hurt. I lost a few pounds though.
I call it the big grease bomb. It definitely doesn’t match the “persona” of my nice clean shop / living space. It will get some serious cleaning next. It also needs a few small repairs that will be attended to. I’ve just about finished the install of the rotary phase converter to power it. We’re still quite a way from making chips as I don’t have a vice or a single end mill yet.
For anybody that cares, this is a Bridgeport knee mill made in 1983. It has chrome ways, a Bridgeport 6F X-axis power feed (that actually works), one shot lube system, a 2HP 2J Variable speed head, and an Acu-Rite II DRO.
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November 9th, 2009
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