Nothing Fancy, Just Dust's Plane Day

[Dust]

How does it happen, you measure, level, measure, level again, the main spar, level side to side, triangulated from the centerline of the instrument panel,set 2 degrees forward so the weight of the wing levels it off, one is not centerred by 1/2 inch and the other is off by a quarter. I JUST DON'T GET IT.

IT IS WHAT IT IS, FORTUNALY the tanks don't do much for lift so it probably won't make a flying difference.

Funny days now, do a little here, do a little there, here a turtledeck installed, there a fire wall bondoed in, here a heat duct extension made, there a hinge countersunk.

Parts is parts

[mplafleur]

First picture is the setting up for installing the upper firewall of the second plane.

Second picture we have the turtledeck floxed and glassed in place with a wedge of foam under it.

[MarbleTurtle]

Did you calibrate your smart level before measuring level?

[Dust]

thinking about it now, we did measure the wings at installation and they agree in length installed..

measure
level
measure once, twice, thrice

[Dust]

So I'm at Rough River looking at this fine fast flying cozy, on the ground, but it flew there, and I mention my snafuuuuu with the spars not being centered

Well, it must be easy to do, his is off center tooooooooooooooooo

[Dust]

in attendance

mplaflower master builder
tom master
señor ostroth - thanes dad
thane
dust
dave


ohhhhh for the days of big layups, little itsy bitsy progress, attached firewall number two and turtledeck #2 tested tank # 4

nit picked canopy bubble # 1 ALLLLLL DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY you knows trimmed, positioned, trimmed, positioned, taped, radiused taped etc,etc,etc nit picky, nit picky

cleaned off bench , unless you know dave doesn't sound like much

[neverquit]

Sorry I didn't come by for plane day. The weather got cold so I decided it was time to install the furnace. I was proud by Sunday night after drilling holes in the house brick, four trips to H.D. and getting into contortionistic positions. All I got was a, "that thing gonna' raise our heat bill"? But the toes are toasty and the epoxy will flow like honey.

Guys, on the strake build, did you go with the 48x48 table? And why are you reinforcing the the nose gear? Did you go with the Wright nose lift?

[Dust]

Originally Posted by neverquit

Guys, on the strake build, did you go with the 48x48 table? And why are you reinforcing the the nose gear? Did you go with the Wright nose lift?

48x60 table and glad to have it all

Wihlemson nose gear, an engineer i trust says it is better

a coupla of guys have had problems out of hundreds flying and we could easily, only a few hours each, reinforce now.

[Dust]

Ok, we had

thane - builder
tom - friend who loves to build airplanes
dave - building bard
mr the flower - master builder
never quite - just looked for a bit
neverquite's SWMBO looked on a bit
dust - PIA

bubble time - attached and trimmed bubble to plane 2 and laboriously formed foam around buble # 1.

In the beginning was concerned about laying into bubble with cutter, heh, that lasted abour 23 seconds, cut with ease, so long as you are wearing a face mask. No harder than any of the other billion cuts you make in plane building

Forming foam around bubble is just plane time consuming. plane 1 is 2/3 done plane 2 is now ready to start, barn is getting nearer to be usable

[Dust]

OK, today was fancy, both, both planes are caught up with each other, both of them have the bubble foamed in place and next week, we get to form them.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

form the bubbly surround

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

its gettin fun now, bubble surround, bubble surround

[mplafleur]

We formed the foam around the canopies today. Here's a before and after picture.

Tom started the carving and dust, well... he made lots of dust.

[Dust]

OK so this plane day was fancy. Really cool. Started out with TWO canopy surrounds ready to carve, two.

really looked HARD, I actually thought we would have to attach extra foam and redo a number of times until we got it right.

Well, i started to sand, tom started to cut in strips for the templates and away we went, mike got there later and picked up the templets, saw the progress and just started rubbing them in to final form, i kept sanding.

All of the sudden i stepped back and i had one side done

I mean, done

AND dam it was beautiful.

Building these planes never ceases to amaze me. the process works, i mean, i can't do hand work well, they call me me jig, i jig everything, and in this procedure, no jigging, just 6 foot, 34 inch 2 foot and 8 inch sanding boards.

Compound curves in every direction, done, done, done

What a relief

[Dust]

Just looked closely at these pics, they are the 90% done one, the other is 99% ..... thats what you get when you pay slave wages .... to a master

[Clutch Cargo]

Check out the picture on the right, the sanding hand is a blur...
Who needs a sander when you have the bionic man?

[Dust]

hey, don't call myself dust fer nuthin