Flying Magazine Article

The shop I built was featured in the July issue of Flying magazine! I'm pretty excited to have made it into the article about cool hangars. The author of the article really liked the idea of featuring a building that was designed and built with the airplane in mind.

Thanks to Pia and Flying Magazine for making my building experience even cooler!

 

Here is the article on their website!

Window Edging

I've been holding off on writing this blog until I finished up the task. Well, it took A LOT longer than what it was supposed to. 

Dates and Times

April

Wed 30 -1.5hrs- finished light wiring 

May

Sat 3  -5.5hrs- window edging prep

Sun 4 -5.5hrs- window edging laid up

Mon 5 -1.5hrs- window sanding and disaster

Tues6 -1.0hr- sanding off old stuff

Wed 7 -1.25hrs- more sanding

Sat 10 -6.5hrs- window prep and laid up new layer of fiberglass

Sun 11 -3.0hrs- more sanding

Tues13 -0.5hr- more sanding

Sat 17 -2.5hrs- so much sanding

Sun 18 -3.0hrs- more sanding and cleaned out the shop

I started off masking and sanding all of the windows. I used the same tape as I did for the windscreen fairing.

A closer shot of everything taped off. I used the same little jig tool to draw a line around the window offset from the edge to place the tape. The radius's at each corner are from circles I printed off on paper of many different sizes. I then cut out the radius I wanted which made a good template for the curve.

Here is a shot of the edge of the door. You can see how I placed tape around the entire perimeter of the door, two layers of duct tape and a layer of electrical tape. I then cut it even with the outer skin of the door. This will result in an even gap around the entire door. You can also see in this picture how the door has a nice sloping curve and the cabin top does not resulting in a slight misalignment.

I then taped around the edge of the door and onto the outer skin to prevent fiberglass adhering to the door itself. In this image you can also see a flat spot on the cabin top in relation to the door....its right in the middle of the picture.

With everything taped up I laid my first bit of fiberglass. First I filled the gaps around the edges of the windows and then laid 2" fiberglass cloth down. The strips were cut from the same type cloth used in the windscreen. I only did around the top of the windscreen and the back windows at this point.

The next day I came out to start sanding everything down when I discovered that nothing was sticking. The glass cloth was peeling off in strips....not good.

This resulted in days of sanding and scraping to get all the old stuff off the plane. It was a major pain in the butt and very disappointing. This set me back a few weeks of work.

I think I know what happened:
1. Original: sanded with orbital sander and 60 grit paper. The orbital didn't "scratch" up the surface enough. New Layup: used 60 grit paper and sanded in 90 degree patterns creating a "scratched" cross pattern around the entire perimeter.

2. Original: cleaned with acetone and therefore smoothed out the ridges from sanding.
New Layup: cleaned with just water.

3. Original: Laid cloth down and applied a thickened epoxy. I was thinking of preventing runs but resulted in cloth not absorbing enough of the resin to harden and adhere properly.
New Layup: wetted entire perimeter with just epoxy and then did a very wet layup of the fiberglass using non thickened epoxy.

The second time I did this the layup looked much nicer than the first. Practice is everything.

This time I also picked up a flexible sanding block and adhesive backed paper. The sanding block is very important to getting a nice gentle curve. VERY important...basically not possible without it.

The second layup stood up to the sanding and trying to peel it off. So with my new sanding block I started sanding, sanding, and sanding. Here is a picture of the old intersection I showed above. Looks much nicer now.

An overall picture. So much sanding. I am not really enjoying this part. Fiberglass dust is awfull stuff.

I finally got a point that I can say I am finished for now. The dust was so bad in the shop dunes were starting to form. I just pulled everything out and blew it off with the air hose. My next goal is to finish a few things up in the tail so I can rivet that last skin on. Then I will finish the rest of the body work for good.

The Engine Has Arrived!

Its here! A brand new, straight from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Lycoming engine! The Lycoming IO-540-D4A5 is a six-cylinder, horizontally opposed, 541.5 cubic inch displacement, normally aspirated, fuel injected, beast of an engine weighing in around 438lbs.

Here it is all crated up and taking up my parking spot in the garage.

All I've done is cut open the top of the box and look inside....and drool a little.

The engine is all sealed up and snug in its nest of foam packing. 

Lycoming started as a sewing machine company back in 1845. Later they diversified to bicycles and typewriters. Then in 1907 the company was restructured into the Lycoming Foundry and Machine Company and started to produce automobile engines. Providing engines to auto manufacturers like Auburn.

Then as aircraft became more prominent and  power hungry, Lycoming entered the aviation field by producing its first aircraft engine, the R-680 Radial nine cylinder engine in 1929. The company had many "science experiments" trying to find its place in the aviation world until it finally settled on general aviation aircraft after World War II.

The engine will stay tucked away in the garage until I'm ready to hang it on the airplane. At which point I'll have an unpacking and moving day of the 438lb beast from the garage to my workshop. Won't be long now!

Foot Well Panel

I was tired of the careful stepping and balancing acts required to avoid the angles in the floor of the foot well and needed a better place to work from inside the airplane. So I decided to go ahead and install my floor pans into the foot wells. The floor pans are a very tight fit and like other builders I decided to just drill and dimple the parts on there own outside of the aircraft. The angles they attach to are already drilled and dimpled so I don't see any harm in this.

 

Then disaster, frustration, and high blood pressure ensued.

 

During the installation of my LH Floor Pan, a very tight fit, while trying to push slowly into position it snagged and slipped and wound up bending. This bending caused the side flange to buckle and the buckle caused a crack around a rivet hole. Pulling the part back out was a nightmare. I cussed, sweat dripping down my face, blood pressure soaring, this task was infuriating. It turns out the small cutouts that are designed to go around the frames of the bulkhead were too small, snagging and binding the pans during the installation.

 

I calmed down...sulked...got some iced tea....and went back to the shop....now what?

 

I decided to remove and deburr the cracked area of the flange on the floor pan, only on the outboard side, inboard side was ok. I'm still maintaining proper edge distance from the adjacent rivets. I also opened the cutouts that were causing the trouble large enough to clear the frames and slid the part back into position. I didn't think cutting out the cracked flange would be any problem structurally since it's just a floor pan or aesthetically since it will all be hidden behind carpet. But just to be sure I figured a second opinion wouldn't hurt so I sent an email to Vans's. They responded with:

"I see no problem with you removing the crack as you did form the floor panel."

Good....I continued building.


Date and Time
Mon 26 -1.0hr- Drilled and deburred parts

Tues 27 -2.25hrs- Deburred and dimpled parts

Wed 28 -2.0hrs-  Finished dimpling, back riveted stiffening angles, riveted access panel doublers

Insulation installed under foot wells.

 

 

Material removed from cutout to clear the frames.

 

Floor Pan in position inside foot well.

 

Area cut from floor pan angle.

I primed and installed the access hole doublers in baggage floors. I also back riveted all the stiffening angles and nutplates.



My Shop....AKA: THE AIRPLANE FACTORY.

New Shop Layout and Tailcone Attach

I had what was described as an ADD Saturday. I pilot friend of mine had free tickets to the Memphis Speedway, I've never been to anything like that before so we decided to fly to Memphis for a few hours to watch the races. The costs would be split 3 ways since we would be bringing a passenger with us as well. So, a cheap flight and free tickets, sounds like a great plan.

Saturday morning brought some large storms over the Memphis area cancelling our plans. So plan B; we'll fly East instead to Chattanooga for the day and do some zip-lining, sounds like a great plan.

The storms are moving East and looks like by the time we tried to head back we would probably be stuck in Chattanooga. So Plan C; we'll fly around town and just shoot some approaches and get lunch.

Weather briefer states the storms will be in our area within 30 minutes, ok no flying today. So plan C; with nothing to do for the day the guys decided to help me rearrange my shop moving the wings to the loft and shifting the large work table to the side so I could position the airplane in the center.

So after a day of bouncing from one idea to another it turned out to be a very productive afternoon. All the finished parts: wings, ailerons, flaps, vertical stabilizer, rudder, elevators, horizontal stabilizer are all stored in the loft. All the piece parts have been moved down and on the shelves for easy access. And the entire shop rearranged to make room for what was about to become something that resembles an airplane.

The next day I called a good friend of mine to stop by for a few hours and help me finish riveting the aft skin of the tailcone. Being the lightweight of the two of us I laid down some blankets and crawled into the tailcone. I good day to be a smaller guy, but still very tight and uncomfortable. We finished the skin and started lining up the two parts, tailcone and fuselage, for what I hope will become a very long relationship between the two. It was pretty easy and went a lot faster than I thought it would. I then swept up the shop, sat down, and just stared at it for a while....awesome.

Total time over the weekend - 6hrs

(including moving airplane parts, riveting the tailcone, and clecoing the tailcone to the fuselage,

not counting sweeping the shop and moving tools)

 

 

 

The shop's new layout.