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J-4 project-3.14159265359

It sure is hard to believe that a fuselage will fit in that little box. ;-)

I didn't realize that there is a tubing source so close to home in Agawam.
 
Now for some actual parts. Back last October is when I actually started the build of some components, I took a few fresh shots of these parts today. First items are the control horns for the rudder and elevator. Images of these are displayed on 2D prints of the parts they will eventually be part of. These control horns will ride on ball bearings reducing control loads and friction in the system.

Rudder,
Rudder print1.jpgRudderhorn1.jpg

Elevator,

Elleprint1.jpgEllehorn1.jpgEllehorn2.jpg
 

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Charlie, the control force is already very light on a J4. The stick is almost 3' long so no effort to do what you want. Keep it light like the original would be my suggestion.

Glenn
 
Glenn, I am at a battle with myself right now on weight. I build in allot of stiffness and crash worthiness in what I design. Right after I placed the order for the tubing a week back I started back in the drawings and started questioning every tube in the design. The actual build will go through stress loading to evaluate the structure as the build progresses. Many of the tubes may well be left out. More than likely though this plane may carry well more than 4 times the power the original has. Granted as your planes show the originals are happy with twice the original power with no issue.

The key goal in my control system will be low friction with lack of freeplay. The tail surfaces are larger than original primarily due to the very generous double slotted flaps the plane will have. Granted the flaps are not locked in stone since I am waiting for the final outcome of my medical. I will be stripping allot of features out of this if it needs to be an LSA.
 
It sure is hard to believe that a fuselage will fit in that little box. ;-)

I didn't realize that there is a tubing source so close to home in Agawam.
Are you thinking of Marmon Keystone? If so they recently changed to restricting sales to large order clients. For me that hurts since I would buy 300 to 500 Lbs of tubing at a time and now they do not move less than 1500 or so. I have had to change to Albany steel for my small orders.

This box that was delivered today has 480' of tube in it. 400ish for this plane and the rest is 1" aluminum tube for the dry sump system in a customers car as well as stocking material. That square box is about as densely packed as I have received.

I miss Charlie at Dillsburg, I bought from him for 40 years. May he rest in peace, he served us well.
 
Yes, I miss Charlie Vogelsong. He was the best at what he did. In the mid '90's I paid a visit to his shop. I'm glad I got to meet him and see his place in person.
 
Are you thinking of Marmon Keystone? If so they recently changed to restricting sales to large order clients. For me that hurts since I would buy 300 to 500 Lbs of tubing at a time and now they do not move less than 1500 or so. I have had to change to Albany steel for my small orders.

This box that was delivered today has 480' of tube in it. 400ish for this plane and the rest is 1" aluminum tube for the dry sump system in a customers car as well as stocking material. That square box is about as densely packed as I have received.

I miss Charlie at Dillsburg, I bought from him for 40 years. May he rest in peace, he served us well.
No, I read the label on your package https://www.twmetals.com/ They are listed at 83 Gold St Agawam Mass.
 
Yes, I miss Charlie Vogelsong. He was the best at what he did. In the mid '90's I paid a visit to his shop. I'm glad I got to meet him and see his place in person.

I went down to pick up a few orders from him long ago, damn did I get home late those nights. We got talking way too long each time. Very nice guy. He changed my material selection a few times streamlining some of my build practices that I stick to today.
 
Trimjack,
This part was made last November, I spent time analyzing the standard piper trim jack, looked at the billet parts available but just wanted a jackscrew that should never have play in it.
So this is how I approached it.

Trimjack1.jpgTrimjack2.jpgTrimjack3.jpg


Trimjack4.jpgtrimjack5.jpgTrimjack6.jpg


I seem to be lacking a number of images from the later phase of machining.
Trimjack7.jpgTrimjack7a.jpgTrimjack8.jpg

Sitting on top of an actuating motor.
Trimjack9.jpgTrimjack9a.jpg
 

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Control sticks,
Here is another part, My Control sticks differ from the original J4 a fair bit. The goal here as with all my control system is weight and friction. I seem to have not had my camera in the shop much as these parts were made so I have not captured allot of detail.

Starting with the torque tube, I used my older Bridgeport table as a jig, this worked well. I will let the pictures talk.
CS2a.jpg CS2b.jpg

CS3.jpgCS3a.jpg

CS1.jpgCS4.jpg

CS4a.jpgCS4b.jpg

The roughed out stick assembly sitting on it's mounts as well as next to the original J4 part.
In comparison my new assembly weighs 3½Lbs, the original is just under 10Lbs
CS5.jpgCS5a.jpg
 

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Your work is beautiful Charlie, I often wondered why Piper made such a complicated stick setup when a single one in the middle would have worked just fine?

Glenn
 
The original controls had me baffled for years, I expect it was simply the technology and materials of the time. I quickly realized I did not want to cannibalize any of my original J4 so it remains as complete as it can be allowing me to simplifying my controls. Originally I was keeping them forward of the bulkhead although I am running the aileron cables up the front of the doors rather than aft of the cabin with all the associated buts needed. Another difference I am doing is running the and
A few months ago after selecting the Carlson HD strut I realized the aileron aileron cable can run up through the lift strut with the bellcrank on the aft face of the front spar. This has moved the controls aft of the bulkhead simplifying many aspects of the system. This being why I have not formed the control sticks, they will wait till the fuselage is welded up and I can properly mock up the cabin.
Another change is the push-pull rod for the elevator will be run under the floor all the way aft of the extended baggage. This offers a full flat floor quite a way back.
I have also recently realized in my plane the center to center of the sticks will be wider than original, these sticks are 19" C-C where the original are 18". More recently from working with a mockup with the actual seats I am using I find the controls will be about 23" C-C so any further work on this system is on hold till I have the fuselage to work/ sit in.
 
Don't forget to do the Island Bob STC on the seat. Taking 3.5 - 4" out front to back makes a huge difference getting in and out of the plane

Glenn
 
I should have looked at that better when up at Basin. My cabin area is a little different with standing the aft door uprights parallel to the front tubes. This reshapes the rear of the cabin and may well offer more access for entry. The seating and control layout truly will wait till the new fuselage is roughed out before many decisions are made. I will be utilizing a fixed bench seat although the rear of the seat will be split folding and probably offer a small amount of adjustment in lean angle.
My right leg does not work well so the foot room upon entry does matter for me.
 
I have done the first actual welding on a fuselage part. I have made the spar carrythrough tubes. I was expecting to have made the full top of the birdcage over the 4th holiday but that was not to be. But it feels good to have started on the welded structure of the plane.

sparCarry1.jpgsparCarry2.jpgsparCarry3.jpg

Turns out I am lacking some of the material I need to connect these two tubes together so it will be awhile till I get much further. I do have some small parts to machine such as flap latch mounting, flap handle mounts and the sockets for the lifting eyes. I am going to utilize an X structure in this assembly and that will have some bent tube so I need to form those parts as well.
 

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Last night I ran the printer so I now have a full scale print of the lower fuselage structure. This will be nice to have laid out on the build table. The line part of this drawing is a development of the tubing laid flat on the table. This will allow the initial layout and welding followed by the lower structure being jigged as it will actually be built.

drawnfuse1.jpg drawnfuse2.jpg

I also printed the firewall structure and outline.

drawnFW.jpg

And a currently important view of the top of the birdcage, image here with the carrythrough tubes set in place. Also another image of a rearspar end fitting.

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No, the original J4 ran a front Vee from the upper engine mounts to the center of the spar tube and continued the Vee back to the rear spar mounts.
My structure will have 5 engine mount bolts and has the front Vee going from the top center mount up to the forward spar mounts. I have been through many design variations and I am settling on the flap handle being top center. That in some ways complicates things in that I still want the trim indicator top center as well. The center of this structure is tight to outer Lexan skin which is roughly 2½" above the carrythrough tubes.
So I chose to build the structure with a little space for the indicator cable to pass through while maintaining generous structure for the mounting of the flap handle.
This cross structure will be plated with a sheet metal structure as well as a center rib channel supporting the upper skin.

This design may vary if I have trouble bending the ¾-.035 tube without distortion.
 
I like it. Those spar carry throughs are going to be much more accurate than building a structure and attaching four wing attach fittings like the original Piper way.
 
I like it. Those spar carry throughs are going to be much more accurate than building a structure and attaching four wing attach fittings like the original Piper way.


That is for sure, these tubes setup in a jig with no fuss and allow all 4 bolts to be in the same plane. The holes are reamed to size while mounted in the milling machine with little chance of distortion as further welding is performed.
 
The load paths should be centered in a joint for maximum strength and minimum stresses. This drawing shows an eccentric load path which needs to be taken into consideration.


Yes, true. But there is other structure that is not seen in this print that reduces the twisting not to mention the only time the loads could get high enough to distort this area is in a crash. And in a crash, something has to give.
Part of the unseen structure is the 0.100" Lexan top skin spreading the loads.
If time allows this coming week I will see if I can pull a test bend, I might just scrap a section of tube and being I own the best bending equipment around here and not willing to travel 8+ Hrs for another bender this may all be for naught.
FWIW I have this assembly already drawn in 4 other structure designs. With a few button clicks and a little updating the build is changed. The only parts locked down are what are photographed already.
 
It's a pretty tough little airplane just the way it is. Came with a great manual with foldouts in detail







Glenn
 
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A bit late to mention, someone on eBay has some J4 drawing available that appear to be real engineering drawings. Not truly knowing what they are I do not find the need to spring the funds for them.
A decade ago I used the drawings Glenn shows here and drew the fuselage in ACAD. I expect my accuracy is no better than I could derive from the 3 versions of manuals I own. That print in Glenn's copy is pretty clean, easy to read.
The plane I am building started from those drawings but has evolved from there as we will see over the next few years as I build this version.
 
A bit more work done, The top of the cabin structure is off the jig now. The X structure is different that the previously poster drawings showed for reasons stated later.
This is a broad view of the structure,
BirdX1.jpg
This structure included sockets for the lift eyes to thread into,
LiftEye.jpg LiftEyeSocket.jpg
I have a stainless threaded socket the eye screws into. this will be capped off for normal operations.

In the center of the structure is the pivot for the flap handle, the notch behind these tabs is a passage for a trim indicator cable to pass, the original X that was shown had a space between the tubes for this cable as well as the flap release cable to pass through.
As with most all controls the flap handle pivots on ball bearings.
FlaphandleBracket1.jpg
 

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Aft of the rear spar will be two 3/4 Sq tubes that are formed into a gentle S curve conforming to the airfoil. In these tubes are hardpoints for the flap torque tube pivots. In the center of the rear spar tube is a pivot for the flap latch mechanism. It is located overhead here for numerous reasons one being it is accessible in flight should there be any issues that need to be tended too.
TrailingTubes.jpg TTpivot.jpg FlapLatchPivot.jpg

And could this be about the extent of true Piper influence here.
piperinfluance.jpg

Well not really.
 

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Thanks for the inspiration, I have 3 planes in pieces, 2 my fathers and 1 that he inherited from my late grandfather in 2010. Dad has had a couple strokes since his father died and its been hard to deal with the changes in Dad from the strokes.. I need to get something started so I can get one of them flying while he is still around. Thank you for the spark of inspiration!
 
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