Plate nuts and Brackets

Monday 11th August 2008, 6hr 55min

Installed platenuts on right spar. Installed mid-section attach nutplates on both spars. Installed tie-down brackets and bell-crank brackets on both spars. Added hardwood bearing plates to wing stand brackets.

Great wedding -over 200 present! Always nice to meet Dorothy's extended family again. Since this project began, I am not visiting Athlone (or Kilkenny, where my own family are based) as often as I would like.

Having installed the tie-down brackets, I found that I had drilled and installed the W-933R tie-down bracket upside down (with the tapped end facing upwards). As the nutplates for the bell-crank brackets are not symetrically placed on the tie-down bracket, it was not possible to just reverse it. Solution? - Just tap the other end of the bracket of course.

It turned out that Vans have sent the wrong platenuts with the new spars. The ones marked K1000-06 (for the inspection plates) were huge and definitely not 'as advertised'. The others were marked K1100-06 but it was -08 I needed to attach the tanks. There were plenty more K1100-08s elsewhere in the kit so I was not stuck for those - just for the moment, but there are no other K1000-06s so I will have to wait for Vans to send the right ones. Fortunately, these are to join the inspection hatches to the bottom spar flange so they can be installed at any time up to first flight. I installed the 62 K1100-08s and finished up.

New Tools!!!

Tuesday 29th July 2008 1hr 30min

Cut tie-down brackets and tapped for rings. Began edge-prep of main and leading edge nose ribs.

I went out yesterday evening to buy the lumber I need for the wing stand and the flat table for the flaps and ailerons. I was very happy with the 4X2 lengths I got. They are 8ft so there will be no wastage. More importantly they are dead straight and heavily grained so they should resist warping. I will glue and screw two lenghts back-to-back to make the posts for the wing stand. I could only get half-inch MDF so I got two sheets and had them ripped in the store. I will glue two layers together on each side of the frame.

Always nice when you get a box of new tools in the post. Included was a low-value torque wrench, a heavier mushroom-head bucking bar that lots of people find very good on the wing skins and a tap for the tie-down brackets, as well as the rings themselves. I had decided to stick with the drop-forged items with their American thread patterns because using localy sourced eye-bolts would have meant drilling out the holes to a metric size and tapping accordingly. This would have been the only metric fitting on the plane and might be confusing to anybody other than myself. Some Torque Seal to identify torqued-up bolts, Permagrit countersinks in #30 and #40 for fibreglass work and a 21/64 drill bit as recommended by Smitty for the Delrin aileron stops made up the rest of the consignment. I am going to need a quarter-inch to three-eights drive adapter and a set of 'crows feet' for the torque wrench - I don't know what possessed me to order the quarter inch drive because my socket set is virtually all three-eight.

Boy, my band saw made a fuss about cutting these tie-down sections. I use a 16tpi blade and it seemed to be melting its way through the metal rather than cutting. Luckily, I had left plenty of margin and I got things nicely cleaned up with the sanding belt and the polishing wheel. Actually tapping the holes was a non-event. I used Beo-Lube (another item in today's goody-bag) and repeatedly went two turns forward and half a turn back, ocassionally coming all the way out to blow off the shavings and re-lubricate. the tap is only just long enough though I went as far as it would let me. I may have to shorten the threaded portion of the rings so that the flange of the rings seat up against the wing skins, although having a slight gap under the flanges might be a blessing for the paintwork. I will decide when the plane is finished and painted.

I made a start on the edge - preparation of the main ribs. This is going to take forever!