May 12, 2022     Grinder completion, New Welder - (8 hours)       Category: Tools

Has been a while since my last update but I finished the grinder, the tracking mechanism took some time to get perfectly aligned but once that was done it ran true and oh boy does it eat steel like soft butter! I am using ceramic belts which are rated for a higher surface feet per minute.

One of the fuselages that a local aviation repair shop got in to repair has really accentuated the need to oil the inside of the tubes. It did not look bad and they had it blasted prior to repair to ensure it was serviceable and the cost to do so was very worthwhile. Once it was blasted they rolled underneath to look at the weld joints and previous repair and noticed that all of the lower tubes looked like Swiss cheese.. There is an extra fuselage that they plan to blast and review otherwise they will have to do a complete rebuild of the entire lower half of it.

I have been watching for a new welder for a while, my old tig machine is only capable of 25-250 amps and in many cases I want to run lower current than it is capable of. I saw a Precision Tig 275 show up on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago for a good deal, the problem was is that it was in Boise which is 325 miles from me. My cousin is attending college at University of Idaho and just happened to be making a trip to visit his parents. When I asked him, he was willing to pick it up and bring it back on his return trip! I gave him the cash for it and a couple days later I get a call from him informing me that I had just purchased a welder from his high school auto shop instructor... Small world... Welder works great and it sure is nice to have more amperage control. It also has the optional pulse module which is nice for thinner material.

KPUW has been finishing construction on the runways and taxiways, there are minimal paint markings and no barricades. Yesterday the third aircraft in 2 months attempted to taxi down an access road that was too narrow and had an excursion. It is worth noting that a Beech C12 does not have adequately sized tires for off runway operations when the ground is soft. They sunk.. I had planned on going flying now that my exhaust on the Cherokee is repaired but ended up lending a hand instead getting them out which took several hours, both of the airport tugs, and a lot of boards..

With the grinder finished up I needed an opportunity to try it out, I have started on the formblocks! Lots of MDF dust to go around but I have two little helpers who are more than happy to help clean up (if I can keep them focused for more than 30 seconds)!

  Mar 29, 2022     Grinder build - (6 hours)       Category: Tools

Saturday I was able to start welding my grinder together, I designed and cut it with tabs to locate all of the parts so it went together with minimal work. I still have a few parts I need to cut out for the tracking mechanism and I want to build spacers for the bearings so there is no side load on them. Once that is done I should be able to wire it up!
And lookie what else showed up! First order of 2024T3 5 sheets .024, 4 sheets .020, and 2 sheets of .032

  Mar 24, 2022     Belt grinder - (35 hours)       Category: Tools

Well, it has been far too long since the last update but it has been a rough few months, between work, holidays, helping a friend set up a maker-space, and then my dad passed away in February which completely derailed me for a while. It has been a bit challenging to keep focus with all that has been going on.

On a lighter note, I just managed to put in the first order for aluminum for wing ribs, spars, and a start on the skins! Hopefully I will be receiving some metal soon so I can start making ribs!
I also just finished designing and cutting out a belt grinder that I will be using for finish sanding the form blocks and any other grinding task that is needed. It is a 2"x72" belt grinder powered by a 2hp motor fed by a VFD so should be able to handle anything I throw at it. The way I designed it, I should be able to use a piece of round tube behind the belt to notch the tubing once I get to the fuselage. It is designed so I can use the belt either vertically or horizontally to provide maximum flexibility. I designed it in solidworks and just finished cutting all of the pieces on the CNC plasma that I helped to set up at the maker-space. It is cut out of 3/8" plate, once I validate that it works according to plan, I will be building a second for the maker-space. I should be able to get started on welding it together this weekend.
The current plan is to leverage the CNC router at the maker-space to cut out the form-blocks and ribs. Since it is only a 30"x30" router table that will take some planning but I think it should be doable by indexing them with dowel pins.
On a less exciting note, I just discovered a crack in the RH exhaust stack of my Cherokee on today's preflight... It goes without saying that it occurred on the nicest day that we have had in the past 3 weeks. Sometimes it seems if I didn't have bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all...

  Dec 21, 2021     Router and Router table!       Category: Tools

I'll be honest, after working as a welder fabricator for 6 years I can do just about anything there is with metal. Wood on the other hand, is not my medium of choice.... Since the form blocks require some woodworking skills it is certainly an opportunity to learn but as part of that I need to get the necessary tools. I've been pricing routers and router tables for a while but haven't pulled the trigger.
Last weekend I spotted a router and router table on craigslist for $50. When I contacted the seller I'd mentioned that I had a project I was planning on working on that required a router table, when he asked me what it was I said "well I need it to build an airplane!" (which in retrospect was probably was not the answer he was expecting) Turns out, he was a pilot that got his license back in 1974 and had acted as a navigator in the air-force.
I went to inspect the router table and ended up showing up a little bit early since the roads have been pretty poor due to snow and having been on the receiving end of it, I didn't want to be the usual craigslist deadbeat and show up an hour late; however, I was about half hour early so I parked on the street and sat there for a while. After a little bit he walked out, kind of looked at me, and then just walked right over to the car. He said "you must be the guy to look at the router table." I was wearing my AOPA hat and it had tipped him off.
There was another gentleman that had gotten there a little ahead of me and was looking at a dust collector that was also advertised for sale. He had wanted to look at the routers but since I'd asked about it first and driven 2 hours, I got first option. It turns out there was two of them for sale, one was a 1.5 horse Black & Decker the other was a 1.5 horse Craftsman with a much nicer table. I ended up deciding on the Craftsman since it had a better table and looked to be in better shape.
As I was getting ready to load it up he asked me if I had a moment for a story. Of course! He said "Well when I was much younger I used to get a couple of different aviation publications and one of those had an advertisement for plans for a midget mustang. I went and showed the article to my dad, the kit was $1,000 (this was 1968 so was quite a bit at that time) so after showing it to him and talking about it I asked him if I could order the kit. His answer was an immediate "NO!" So there went my plans of building an airplane." "About a year later, I was looking through another magazine and ran across a set of plans for a sailboat, well, I knew my dad had soft spot for sailboats so I went and showed him the plans. After showing it to him and talking about the design for a while I asked him if he would let me buy the plans, he hesitated a second or two and said "Sure go ahead!. I turned around and started walking back to my room to write the letter (you had to send a letter and a check in those days), once I had walked about halfway to my room I then stopped, turned back to him, and asked "Dad, why are you letting me order plans for a sailboat today, but you wouldn't let me order an airplane kit last year?" His response was immediate and completely deadpan "BECAUSE I KNOW YOU CAN SWIM!!!!". "I ordered the plans but I just turned 71 this year, I still have those plans to this day but I haven't built the sailboat.."

In some ways his story was saddening, his dad had owned a service station and he had grown up working on vehicles yet his dreams to build an airplane when he was younger had been quashed. Now, there is still the possibility that even if he had gotten the kit at that time it would have never been finished (or even started) much like the sailboat plans he bought. And while he had not started to build his own aircraft later in life, at least he had the opportunity to acquire his pilots license and experience flight even if it was not in a machine he had built.

I still have reservations about myself as to whether I will be able to keep my focus long enough to be able to stick it out. I think I can, but it will be hard to keep that focus and still make sure to to have time for my family. I am great about focusing on one thing for a short to moderate time-frame but this will end up being a longer period of time and that in itself will be a challenge.