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New member building a PA18-95

Finished my plating. Stuff to share that I learned.

Finished with plating the larger parts today. All that really needed to happen to accomplish this was a different shaped plating tank. Hung the parts in diagonally with the zinc along the sides. Worked well.

Had some rework to do on some of the smaller parts. The colors varied slightly but more importantly the difference in shininess bothered me. I sprayed clear over top of about 12 parts to remedy this. DON'T DO THIS. When the clear was still wet, I was happy. When it dried, I was not.

The problem is Caswell recommends no brightener for a Cad look. This is fine for the first few batches, but slowly your parts start looking like bronze baby shoes with no oil slick colors in them. The solution is to add this brightener in the plating solution to liven things back up. When you do this, the finish is too shiny and starts to dull to acceptable then too dull, repeat. This is tough to control and hard to get repeatable results.

I did some reading and tried three different quick acid dips after zinc plating and right before the chromic acid(color) dip to bring the zinc to a bright sheen. Sulfuric acid was a fail. Muriatic acid was a fail. Nitric acid at a 1% solution was a huge success! The picture of the spar attachment bracket halfway dipped is the difference. I quit using the brightener and used this method on the small parts I had to redo and all of the large parts. Very uniform, very easy to repeat, nice coloring.

Things I learned:

If you blast your parts down to bare metal, plate and chromate them, and are unhappy, 30% more or less Muriatic acid(hydrochloric with impurities), will strip all of the plating back off in about 30 seconds. Do this outside with a broom handle length stick and a wire. When you take the lid off of the bucket and the acid contacts moisture, it smokes. Be upwind. Don't get the acid on anything you like meaning your body, your eyes, or your lungs. When you dip the part and the fizzing stops, you are done. Immediately rinse the steel parts with water then distilled water and immediately re-plate. You won't get the zinc plating back off easily by blasting even with aluminum oxide.

If you chromate your zinc plated parts and are unhappy with the color, 5% more or less Muriatic acid for about 10 seconds will strip the chromate back off and leave the zinc. Rinse the parts with distilled water quickly after doing so to stop the acid and immediately chromate(color) again. This removal must be done when the chromate is still soft. If you let it harden overnight, you are back to the nasty 30% Muriatic bare metal strip down.

A 1% Nitric acid quick dip for 3 seconds after zinc plating and before chromating will make the zinc a nice dull silver color. This is what you want for repeatable results. If you don't have that, strip it all off and zinc plate again. Nitric acid can be bought at a 4% solution and shipped to you non Hazmat. At higher concentrations, that is not the case. It is wicked stuff...

Make sure all of the blasting media is off of your parts before plating. Do this by rinsing with water, then distilled water, then immediately plating. It doesn't take much to wreck the plating, it will stick to the parts like weld splatter and spread across the part like a black horrific cancer. Again, the cure is the nasty 30% muriatic acid stripping.

A little zinc will go a long way. I was worried about not having enough. The pieces I started with were .040 thick, and 4"X8". I was able to plate all of the steel parts pictured here and you can see what was left. It is now about the thickness of a razor blade, but it was enough.

Bath temperature does not seem as important as what Caswell recommended. They recommend 110 degrees for the zinc plating bath, and 80 degrees for the chromating bath. With my larger parts, I had temps down to 70 degrees for both with the same results.

I would skip the zinc brightener solution. Too hard to replicate results between batches.

I whipped up a home brew plating solution after I was done to see if I could get the same results. White vinegar, Epsom salt, sugar. It plated, but it was slow.... I believe if you wanted a good thickness of zinc, it would likely take up to 12 hours at the same .14amps per square inch. Still very thin plating after 2 hours. This elixir was not worth the effort.

In a nutshell if you want to try this, buy the plating solution and the chromate from Caswell. It is worth the money. The zinc likely is too, but I'm going to try a product called Moss Boss which is a roofing product available at Menard's, Home Depot and the like to see what it acts like with the Caswell plating solution. It worked with the homebrew.

Anyway, here are the completed pictures. I'm happy with it. Also included the Hillbilly Dust Collector. For some reason it didn't make it through on my last post.

NOT A CHEMIST, OR AN EXPERT. PLAY WITH STUFF LIKE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Thanks,

Jim
 

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Finished with plating the larger parts today. All that really needed to happen to accomplish this was a different shaped plating tank. Hung the parts in diagonally with the zinc along the sides. Worked well.

Had some rework to do on some of the smaller parts. The colors varied slightly but more importantly the difference in shininess bothered me. I sprayed clear over top of about 12 parts to remedy this. DON'T DO THIS. When the clear was still wet, I was happy. When it dried, I was not.

The problem is Caswell recommends no brightener for a Cad look. This is fine for the first few batches, but slowly your parts start looking like bronze baby shoes with no oil slick colors in them. The solution is to add this brightener in the plating solution to liven things back up. When you do this, the finish is too shiny and starts to dull to acceptable then too dull, repeat. This is tough to control and hard to get repeatable results.

I did some reading and tried three different quick acid dips after zinc plating and right before the chromic acid(color) dip to bring the zinc to a bright sheen. Sulfuric acid was a fail. Muriatic acid was a fail. Nitric acid at a 1% solution was a huge success! The picture of the spar attachment bracket halfway dipped is the difference. I quit using the brightener and used this method on the small parts I had to redo and all of the large parts. Very uniform, very easy to repeat, nice coloring.

Things I learned:

If you blast your parts down to bare metal, plate and chromate them, and are unhappy, 30% more or less Muriatic acid(hydrochloric with impurities), will strip all of the plating back off in about 30 seconds. Do this outside with a broom handle length stick and a wire. When you take the lid off of the bucket and the acid contacts moisture, it smokes. Be upwind. Don't get the acid on anything you like meaning your body, your eyes, or your lungs. When you dip the part and the fizzing stops, you are done. Immediately rinse the steel parts with water then distilled water and immediately re-plate. You won't get the zinc plating back off easily by blasting even with aluminum oxide.

If you chromate your zinc plated parts and are unhappy with the color, 5% more or less Muriatic acid for about 10 seconds will strip the chromate back off and leave the zinc. Rinse the parts with distilled water quickly after doing so to stop the acid and immediately chromate(color) again. This removal must be done when the chromate is still soft. If you let it harden overnight, you are back to the nasty 30% Muriatic bare metal strip down.

A 1% Nitric acid quick dip for 3 seconds after zinc plating and before chromating will make the zinc a nice dull silver color. This is what you want for repeatable results. If you don't have that, strip it all off and zinc plate again. Nitric acid can be bought at a 4% solution and shipped to you non Hazmat. At higher concentrations, that is not the case. It is wicked stuff...

Make sure all of the blasting media is off of your parts before plating. Do this by rinsing with water, then distilled water, then immediately plating. It doesn't take much to wreck the plating, it will stick to the parts like weld splatter and spread across the part like a black horrific cancer. Again, the cure is the nasty 30% muriatic acid stripping.

A little zinc will go a long way. I was worried about not having enough. The pieces I started with were .040 thick, and 4"X8". I was able to plate all of the steel parts pictured here and you can see what was left. It is now about the thickness of a razor blade, but it was enough.

Bath temperature does not seem as important as what Caswell recommended. They recommend 110 degrees for the zinc plating bath, and 80 degrees for the chromating bath. With my larger parts, I had temps down to 70 degrees for both with the same results.

I would skip the zinc brightener solution. Too hard to replicate results between batches.

I whipped up a home brew plating solution after I was done to see if I could get the same results. White vinegar, Epsom salt, sugar. It plated, but it was slow.... I believe if you wanted a good thickness of zinc, it would likely take up to 12 hours at the same .14amps per square inch. Still very thin plating after 2 hours. This elixir was not worth the effort.

In a nutshell if you want to try this, buy the plating solution and the chromate from Caswell. It is worth the money. The zinc likely is too, but I'm going to try a product called Moss Boss which is a roofing product available at Menard's, Home Depot and the like to see what it acts like with the Caswell plating solution. It worked with the homebrew.

Anyway, here are the completed pictures. I'm happy with it. Also included the Hillbilly Dust Collector. For some reason it didn't make it through on my last post.

NOT A CHEMIST, OR AN EXPERT. PLAY WITH STUFF LIKE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Thanks,

Jim

thanks, I bookmarked this...

please consider starting a separate thread about plating and put this in, or if there is all ready a thread on it, adding it to it.... to make search easier for us
 
White vinegar, Epsom salt, sugar. It plated, but it was slow.... I believe if you wanted a good thickness of zinc, it would likely take up to 12 hours at the same .14amps per square inch. Still very thin plating after 2 hours. This elixir was not worth the effort.
Thanks,

Jim

thats all I've tried, and also was not impressed.... got the job done but dull & ugly.. thanks for the comparison

let me know if any other home-brew formulas work... caswell will not ship up to me in alaska....
 
Mike,

One I ran across was on thisoldtractor.com/zinc Gregory Bender. His parts look like they might brighten with the nitric acid dip. Might catch fire too, I don't know. Before my teeth get wiggly, I'm gonna quit experimenting with plating solutions. I'm not qualified to even guess. The one homebrew I tried sounded pretty harmless. His concoction looks to involve distilled water, zinc oxide powder, sodium hydroxide(lye, caustic soda?). There were also some other homebrews mentioned there. I've never tried Lutefisk because of the lye thing... Used lye on the farm to remove well, most anything stinky, dead, and gross. Bones and all.

I'll try to figure out how to move these last two posts.

Wish I could be more help to you.

Thanks,

Jim
 
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Moss Boss alternative zinc test
Moss Boss is a roofing product for controlling moss/lichen? growth on cedar and asphalt shingles. I bought some from Menard's, a local big box home improvement store in this neck of the woods. This product is 99.7% pure zinc versus what I used for plating my parts which was 99.9%. Because it is shiny, I would guess the .2% is lead, but I don't know that for sure.

This stuff by weight is much cheaper. I was concerned about having enough zinc to finish my parts, and it was available locally. Before work tonight I plated with it in the Caswell bath. Same conditions as the last parts, 70 degree bath, agitation from an aquarium pump. The only difference was that I was pushed for time so it only got 10 minutes of plating versus 20 which should mean a thinner coating of zinc.

I can't see much difference.

I suppose a better test will be to run more parts. There is likely some zinc from before suspended in the bath, but from my limited experience, if the bath is even slightly contaminated, it shows up immediately on your parts. I'll find out for sure on the next project.

Some things I forgot to mention earlier:

Don't handle the parts from blasting through the entire process including curing with your bare hands. Your fingerprints will show up like black ink.

Get the water drops off the parts after chromating as soon as possible by blowing on them. Where the drip hangs will discolor the finish. Don't use compressed air, don't use a heat gun. Hang them in front of a box fan with a gentle breeze to dry them. I gave them 20 minutes before moving them to a place to further cure via a wire through a hole, not with my hands.

The finish is soft as hell until it cures. It will smear or more like slough off if you don't leave it alone for a day to be safe. This is the chromate coloring, not the zinc. I assume this is because the chromic acid is working on the zinc and it needs time to react.

I covered all the acid buckets immediately after use. It is acid, it is going somewhere. Use the Hi-Test stuff outside close to a source of water. I plan to tape the lids sealed on all of this stuff, put it inside a plastic tote with its lid taped shut and wrap it in plastic for storage. I wish I had a place other than my shop for this process and storage but I don't.

Water down or neutralize any spills before you clean it up with a paper towel or rag. I wiped a drop of the chromic acid off the glass bottle it came in with a paper towel. It immediately got hot. After that I was very conscious of not making a spontaneously combustible pile of towels or rags in the trash.

The Caswell plating manual helped. There is a lot of information in it. Some of it is helpful and important, some of it is not.

This was my first attempt at this. I am an ignorant rookie. My postings are just my observations from along the way. Be mindful of that if you use any of them, and be careful!

Time to put this stuff away. I finally have all the parts to put my wings together. This will be a first time experience as well.

Thanks,

Jim​
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Gonna be tight in here for a while...

Cleaned up everything from the plating tonight. Fished my spars out from under the bench and finally got them unwrapped. They aren't antiques yet, but I've had them for a while now.

Pleased on three counts. 1) Looks like I'll have just enough space to put them both together at the same time. 2) My ribs slide on the spars. 3) Looks like after I tidy up the H2AD parts on my bench I'll have 8' of it left to assemble ailerons and flaps. Too embarrassed to take a picture of that mess. Looks like a bomb went off.

Ordered the "how to assemble" CD from Univair last night. Hopeful it shows up yet this week.

Assuming laying out, cutting the inboard ends of the spars, and match drilling the spar attachment points/brackets is first. Going to try to figure that out tomorrow.

Super Cub wings so it looks like Figure 5 on drawing 14383 for front spar and Figure 2 on drawing 14453 for rear.

If it isn't as straight forward as the drawings show for the inboard attachment points, please give me a heads up. Gonna hack on them if I think I'm sure. Not 100% on the exact total lengths yet, so outboard spar ends will stay long for now.

Thanks,

Jim
 

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Don't forget using the incidence block on your outboard saw horse while you are assembling the wings for the correct washout. Particularly while fastening the leading edges.
 
Thanks Pete. Will likely have to ask more questions when I get to that. Last aileron rib will be the last outboard rib. Won't be in the same place as a standard wing, further outboard some. Spars are just sitting there for now. Just wanted to make sure ribs were going to slide on and see how much real estate I was going to have left last night. Going to watch the DVD before I do anything much more than slide all the ribs on and lay stuff out. Maybe mount drag struts. Would like to get the inboard spar attachment points done for measuring and layout purposes before watching the DVD. This may not be a good idea, might be more involved than it appears. Hopefully someone will chime in on that. The iron is hot...
 
Last aileron rib will be the last outboard rib. Won't be in the same place as a standard wing, further outboard some..
This is telling me that you are planning to have squared off wing tips. I would use the length that you have. Don't cut off any of it except to ensure they are the same. You will not regret having every extra inch of span which is available to you.

Your incidence block should be in the same location as the stock outboard aileron rib in order to provide the same amount of twist. Not that there would be much difference in twist over that length of spar.
 
Pics
 

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So far so good

Going against what I know is probably sound advice, I'm going to have to take 10.375+- inches off of my 17' spars. They will be roughly 193.25" long from attachment bolt to the end. The reason is this, I'm not remaking my flap/aileron spars, and their leading edges. Sticking to what I had planned originally, 8' ailerons, 8' flaps extended to fuse and outboard. Can't go in reverse now if I want to try to finish this in my time frame. My rear spar is .125" shorter overall length vs. original round tip, my front spar is 3" longer vs. original round tip. My overall square tip wing will be roughly 5" shorter than the round tip, but will have 23.25" more flying wing surface per side. Hate to waste nice spar material, but its what makes sense to me. Ribs are close to where they go. Same layout as original 13 rib wing with a 14th at a narrow bastard spacing on the end. Lightweight nose ribs to go between all except for maybe between 13th and 14th. Laid leading edges(like original), false spars, flap/aileron spars over top of wing and it looks like all that I masterminded/crafted years ago should work. We'll see...

I took close ups of what I butchered off the ends of the front(last post), and rear spars(this post) for attachment. It appears right to me(other than the temporary bolts and lack of steel bushings). If someone who has done this before sees anything that doesn't look right with this part of it, please let me know. For the moment I still have 10.375+- inches worth of spar to correct possible mistakes.


Thanks,

Jim
 

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Good luck on getting the DVD anytime soon. I ordered a copy from Univair on Oct 23rd. Paided to have 2 day delivery. I called 6 days later and was told they were out of stock, but would have them restocked two days ago. I just checked online and it still hasn't been shipped.
 
Jim,

Here's my take on the location of the holes for the cross members. I appreciate to know if you agree, as I hope to drill holes as well.
I bought my spars with the cluster of holes already drilled at the wing root and at the strut attachment if you would like me to verify those.

spar hole locations.jpg
you're project is looking great.
john
 

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I hope that’s right John. That’s exactly what I did. Stretched a string fom 1st drag strut hole location to #5 to determine distance off bottom of spar for #s 2,3,and 4. Going to need to take about 1/8” off the bottom of some of my drag tube feet so my holes will line up and fit within the spar web. Don’t see why, they measure right with the drawings. Kinda goofy how front spar drag tube locations increase from the bottom outboard while the rear does just the opposite. It will likely make sense soon.
 
Kinda goofy how front spar drag tube locations increase from the bottom outboard while the rear does just the opposite. It will likely make sense soon.
I don't know for sure but that seems like it is accounting for the washout being built in.
 
Jim,

Thank you for the confirmation.
Here's the detail for washout and dihedral if you haven't
seen it yet in the Piper drawing package.

image 5.PNG

image 6.PNG

image 7.PNG

image 10.PNG
I found an on-line calculator to convert minutes and seconds
into degrees, to get to 0.6875 degrees of washout when the
fuselage is level.

john
 

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The drag with drag wires

I know some people are using some ribs similar to mine. Mine are basically a copy of a Carlson aileron rib with some diagonals added. Once I got my drag tubes installed and put the drag wire pulls on, I stretched some string to simulate drag wires and realized I had to make some changes for clearance. My wing layout is a 13 rib wing with a 14th rib on the end. All of the ribs are where they go according to the print.

This is not a dig on the Carlson rib. They look to be fine ribs, and they are great people to deal with. Just posting some pictures so hopefully it saves someone pulling their ribs on and off the spars a million times to make changes. Someone who has done this before would likely know and expect to make these changes.

Ribs that had to change counted from inboard out are #1,2,6,7,8,9,10,and 12(because of the added diagonal). The nose rib between #8 and #9 also has to be changed.

After stretching string in the tank bay, I decided to go with standard 18 gallon tanks. I have waffled back and forth on this one with many ideas, this will be the lightest and the simplest to carry enough fuel for my needs with an 0-320. A guy could just hack out the intercostals in the middle of rib two, but unused, unplanned holes bother me, I just remade them.

Because of my unused hole thing, I tried to make my modifications reusing the rivet holes I had originally. They look a little goofy, and they are what they are. Some of my rivets had to go up a hole size because they didn't drill out well. In hindsight, I would have left the intercostals out on these ribs to start with and moved them slightly to have drag wire clearance. Tried moving them slightly on the spars for clearance, that wouldn't work either.

Included is a picture of the PK (truss head sheet metal screws) that I used. These came from Dakota Cub. They are stainless and tiny. I used them because Steve from Texas who posts here recommends them.

Also included is a picture of hillbilly long #40 bit which you will need. This is a 5/32 arc welding rod with the flux knocked off. I drilled a hole 1/4" in with a #39 and brazed a #40 in the end. Not NASA quality, but it is working so far. Also had trouble finding a long #1 Phillips screwdriver. Pictured is an extension from a spade bit kit with a #1 Phillips in the end. I'd rather put them in by hand for fear of twisting them off, but this is working. Running them most of the way in with power, setting them with a twist of the wrist to keep from burying them and twisting them off.


Plan is to modify the ribs on the port wing now and get it to match the starboard.


ONWARD.


Thanks,


Jim
 

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Necessary distractions

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Time flies after half time.

Daughter retired from gymnastics this winter to focus on running. Pictured here with the oldest boy. Reached level 9 without major injury, has more medals than display area. Proud of her, she could have continued on and had continued success, but to be honest I'm glad she's chosen to let this go. Nothing will log more miles on mama's vehicle than gymnastics and dance. Gymnastics makes flying look cheap and I know flying with wings is safer.

Another wrestling season in the bag. From the middle of November until the middle of April, wrestling takes over. Not much time for much else. Oldest pictured here after his Conference win. Went 34-11 on the season. Proud of him too. Middle boy moved up with the High School program this spring, youngest has one more year with Dad at the middle school level and then I'm done coaching. 12 years will be enough.

Had quite possibly the best time ice fishing ever with my Dad this past winter. Why wouldn't you go ice fishing fresh after a hip replacement? Not saying where, but the Bomber behind my Dad is likely a dead giveaway to some guys in Minnesota.

Bought Mom and Dad a golf cart for bringing stuff up and down to the lake at their cabin. Maybe Dad will actually use the damn thing and keep from hobbling himself again... Needed some better rear tires.

A go-kart for little boys was on the build list for this spring. Golf carts and 4-wheelers are listed in the same place on Craigslist by the way. Boys were disappointed that the golf cart was going 3hrs. away to Grandma/Grandpas. Wife said "absolutely not", but not emphatically and you know the rest.

Finally got enough hours on the 172 to feel good about taking kids up. They are pleased and so am I.

Finally got my lathe and mill leveled, wired, and operational. Purposely haven't done much with them yet, the money for tooling/learning the hard way comes from "Jim's Airplane Fun Money Account".

Got all of the wheeled distractions out of the airplane factory this past weekend, got back to the wings. Port side wing coming together, making lots of little parts into big parts. No surprises so far. Exciting to see the wings slowly coming together without issue.

I know this isn't Facebook, but I've found that if I post, I do.

Thanks,

Jim



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More little pieces...

My South Bend 13 lathe is 72 years old. I noticed I had some movement in the headstock bearings when I first started playing with it and feared the worst. I had about .004 up and down in the front. After some reading and about 20 minutes of adjustment, got her back to .001. I love simple old heavy junk that works!

Anyway I needed to make 6 bushings with it that get pressed in the spar attachment points. Yes, I know McMaster Carr will gladly ship these to me, but this was more fun. Had to dig out my plating stuff again. Took longer to re-remember how to do it than plate the parts. Nice to have this option for a few things that get forgotten. Last Fall, I hung a plated test part on the garden fence to see how long it would take to rust outside in Minnesota weather. Been out there roughly 8 months, still looks good. Should have hung one from my rear bumper on my truck for comparison.

Had to make a couple of aluminum spacer washers as well for behind the #1 drag struts where there is no drag wire attachment in the tank bay. Also missed two spar stiffeners.

Any problem with using AD (hard) rivets in place of the stainless screws that go through the spar stiffeners, spars, and drag tube feet?

Thanks,

Jim


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Wow Glenn, I am always amazed at what people know here. At first, I wasn’t sure what you were referring to with the B-12 question. The snow machine in the picture is not mine, but again an awesome old heavy machine that works. Jake’s Resort, NW Angle, Lake of the Woods, MN own it. They have a smaller one too, I think it used to be a school bus from the 30’s-40s. In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting and curious places I have been to, and I try to go every year with my Dad and his buddies. Cat is out of the bag now, I could tell you the fish weren’t caught up there, but it would be a lie.
 
This was a project my friend had in a snowmobile museum in NWNJ. I hauled it home 12+ years ago after my buddy Roger bought the project. Took him 10 years to restore it



Glenn
 
That's awesome Glenn! Here are better pictures from a few years back of two of them they run. I believe they extended the big one. They have a third that I don't have a picture of. I thought it was built from an old school bus, but I'm remembering it having round windows like yours. The one I don't have a picture of has a manual transmission, controls remind me of a Studebaker grain truck we had when I was a kid.
 

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I think all the round porthole window ones are plywood and the newer ones are Aluminum sided and built similar to a school bus body. Found an aluminum one up in the Adirondacks years back and it had been registered for road travel and it was a 1971 model. Look on YouTube for B-12 Bombardier

https://youtu.be/V8lt0_Gkel8

Sorry for thread drift

Glenn
 
Update

All ribs, nose ribs, drag wires, fuel bay tube, etc. installed. Trammeled wings, everything squared up nicely and easily. The only trammel points I already owned were for laying out ductwork and were permanently fastened to a sliding trammel bar that was too short. Bought these off Amazon, 25 bucks or so, Eclipse brand pretty decent for the $. 6' 3/4" square aluminum tube for a trammel bar was long enough. Doctored up a pair of channel locks with electrical tape to keep from marring the drag wires while tightening the nipples. Used the fish scale at an 8lb pull and the 1/4 drill bit for a deflection guage. Put doubled up heat shrinks everywhere the wires crossed and where I was concerned about potential of wires rubbing on ribs.

Drilled holes for flap and aileron brackets. I'll have six total, 3 and 3. Missed making 8 part number 10291 rear spar stiffeners. Cranked out 6 tonight on my mill. Loving the mill.
When laying out holes, I noticed that the outboard flap hinge on standard wings shows up in a weird spot on the 13 rib wing layout drawing. When you lay them out with the rear spar drawing, that 44" spacing from the inboard hinge puts it about where I have my pen in the picture. It is possible I missed something in translation, anybody else notice this before?

Because I have 8' flaps and ailerons, I had to deviate 2 hinge locations.

I moved my flap bellcrank out to the second/middle hinge. I put this hinge and bellcrank where I have my pen and screwdriver in the picture.

I put my outboard aileron hinge 13" inboard from the tip of the squared wing because it had to go somewhere and I like odd prime numbers.

I tried to keep both hinge locations close to a drag wire strut, and out of the way of everything else.


Have a couple of questions.

1) Is flap bellcrank stop to go behind the flap hinge bracket? It must, but it seems kind of weird to pinch it between the bracket and the rear spar. It looks like it will kick the bracket down at a weird angle by doing so. Not finding a good pic.
2) The cover on the false spar behind the tank bay, is it there primarily to beef up the rear spar because of the location of the flap bellcrank or because that second rib has to be butchered to accept a tank? Both? I plan to do something similar on my first 3 rib bays because I moved that bellcrank out.

Thanks,

Jim
 

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Wings Coming Together

Things are coming together. Did a light rear spar beef up at rear strut attachment point. Yes, I tried to copy for the most part what Javron does. Looked like a good idea, shouldn't make the wing weaker. Took lots of time to build, Javron's are nicer and better, just buy his.

Also extended the false spar beef up for the tank bay one rib outboard. This is where my center hinge for the flaps and flap bellcrank live.

Leading edge went on temporarily with PK screws. Had to cheat. My flange on the leading edge should have been 1/8" longer to get in the safe to drill area on the front spar. Not going to remake my leading edges. Peeled them back off, flush riveting. Solid rivets on bottom, blind rivets on top.

64.8 lbs so far, I'm pretty sure they will be 97 lbs per side when ready to cover.

Having fun.

Thanks,

Jim
 

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Pete,
The picture that you have referenced is the outboard end of the port side spar. I’m not the best photographer and because I have aileron ribs only, it is unclear. The rear spar attachment points are present and accounted for on the other end. Thanks for keeping an eye on me though. I for sure need it!
Jim
 
Things are coming together. Did a light rear spar beef up at rear strut attachment point. Yes, I tried to copy for the most part what Javron does. Looked like a good idea, shouldn't make the wing weaker. Took lots of time to build, Javron's are nicer and better, just buy his.

Jim, thanks for all the pictures.

I've looked over and over at the Javron approach to stiffeners but I could never see any real detail. Did you ask him for drawings or did you just figure it out from photos?

I'm building a wooden wing that is supposed to be designed to 2200 # gross. But I plan on adding larger flaps like you've done and moving ailerons out so they will fit, so I'm interested in "beef-ups" and why there were deemed necessary.

Thanks again for the detailed photos. They help in ways that aren't apparent at first.

Vic
 
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