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building a wag aero 2+2/ upgraded pa14

This is defiantly a learning experience for me, Like I said I never had to build from plans before I've always copied something or in most cases built from my head, thats why I've been sharing m troubles one day it might help someone else doing this.

Back doing what I'm familiar with today, cutting and welding.

first tube joining the upper and lower

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got all the 5/8 tubes cut and fit in the rear section of fuselage except for the very last 2 which I will do later after the tailpost is done.

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Really like the YouTube. Keep up the good work. [emoji1377]


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org
 
Thanks ADK_cub I'm always glad to hear people enjoy them! , new episode will be up once its done uploading. I never got a any shop work done today, a simple snowmobile ride today with a few buddies turned into a 3 hour return trip to get back from a location thats normally a 20 min direct ride in good conditions, but one broken sled and then during the tow home we ending up in the deepest and wettest overflow I've been in in a few years. so we were all pretty beat out by time we got back to town so Ive been doing research and video editing all evening. on the plus side we did get to see a lynx on the way back just outside of town which is strange not many hang around that close to people, of course my phone was dead and I never got a picture of the cat unfortunately.

Joey.
 
got a little done today, I got the firewall done as much as I will do until I have an engine mount for a jig, I will finish weld the joints of course.

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then I added in the 3/4 tube from the front landing gear point to the panel tube, I figured it was better to weld the larger tube in then afterwards I will add the smaller 5/8 tube from lower firewall to also the panel location.

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moving along and I'm to the point of doing the door openings, Like I've mentioned before I'm doing the squared off lower doors which I have figured out.

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Problem is on the fuselage I seen with this door mod there was a tube added in the bay behind the door, I have it drawn in pencil here as well as a tube to represent the new bottom tube for the door opening.

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Problem is that tube is in the way of the baggage door I had planned to add, would it be okay to dogleg the tube like this so I have a sensible size door.

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I also thought about dogging it up like this instead, would move the door opening down which I prefer but it doesn't look as right as having the dog leg go down.

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Whats everyone's opinions on this ? or if someone has a better idea I'm all ears.

Joey.
 

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I did a Crosswinds STOL door on a 12 fuselage and if I remember right the bottom tube paralleled the bottom longeron. Your penciled in tube looks higher in the rear.
 
Yeah I noticed that when I looked at pictures after, when I drew it in I went 90* to vertical post it intersects. on the plane I planned to go parallel to the longeron. I only drew it on the plans to get a visual to figure out the tube I'm in question of dog legging.
 
well not much building happening, hard to find motivation to go into the shop after a 12 hour night shift in a mine. nut I have been researching and planning a bit.

I drew this up this morning ( I might be young but a pencil still works better for me then a computer) for the plan for my cargo door all black lines are tubing and the red will be the actual door opening, it might end up a bit bigger once I see it in person (think I might just go right to the upper longeron) and there will be some sort of structure to stabilize the top right corner of the opening if it stays drawing size. My main concern and question is with the tubing, is there anything any of you would do different ?

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Labrador_cub, Each bay should form a triangle. Any other shape can distort when a load is applied. You have a trapezoid where your door is going. Place one or more tubes in that bay so that each section in that bay forms a triangle. This may not be a good explanation. Just remember that a triangle forms the strongest structure. The engineering calculations can be complex.
 
I would put in the biggest baggage door you can, is the floor going to be flush to the lower longeron or raised?
DENNY
 
Skywagon, I get what you are saying about everything being a triangle, that's a good way to put it! I will bring a few copies of the sheet to work tonight to play with during break.

Denny, floor wont be completely on the Longerons but not far off it back here. I seen a pa14 on here done with the floor flat from the seat area back. So it will be on longers at the ends and off a little in the middle.
 
I stopped in at the seaplane base in Wabush once long ago (c1976) for fuel. I had heard that the mines had shut down since then. Apparently not, if that's where you are working. We were camping on a lake (Lac Fleur de Mai) 40 or 50 miles east of there and could hear the trains going to Sept Isle at night. Sound sure travels a long distance in that country.
 
I’d just buy my 14 I’ve owned 5 of them and this one is ready to build! New from univar. 208-994-1607.
 
The sheffervile mine north of here shut down that might be the one they were referring to. It has since reopened though some time back when iron ore was really high around back around 2010. The mine I work for , iron ore company of canada, expanded around that time as well. But in 2015 when ore dropped we had a big layoff and wabush mines shut down. This place made out alright but wabush mines was down for a few years until it was bought by a new owner.

You are certainly right about sound traveling out here! Wintertime on a calm cold night you can hear the mine or trains running from a very long way away.
 
When modifying the fuselage you have to think 10 steps ahead. A “minor” alteration can become an insurmountable obstacle further down the line.

It’s hard to tell from the drawing, but is the baggage door going on the starboard side? Because if you put the baggage door on the port side how are you going to run flap cable and fuel lines?
 
Yeah it dont take much to change many things down the line, for that I've kept fuselage changes to a minimum for my first build. Door will be on the port side as this is primarily a float plane and that's the side I will fly and dock on 90% of the time. Fuel lines are something I have to figure out but flaps will be overhead so I'm clear there. I'd like a centered fuel selector but that might be more trouble then its worth. I'm trying to set up everything that it can be flown comfortably from either seat. Good chance the first flight will be from the right seat as I'm most comfortable with stick in right hand. Once I figure out the plane I'll ween over to the left seat.
 
I was in and out of the seaplane base at Wabush a few times in the last few years. I guess they are closed now. To bad.

Jim
 
Thanks paul I'll send you a PM.

Jim, yeah they are closed for now, they were a large outfit so someone will have to pick up the slack I guess. They were fairly steady here during the summer so I hope someone sets up base here again.

Thanks mike your album has been my biggest source for info on this mod.

I think I'm going to keep it simple and just dogleg the addition tube a little bit, looks like I can still get a decent door doing that.

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not much physical progress I just finished up the last of my 10 night shifts this morning but I did get one tube cut a fit this morning until I got to tired to do good work. but I'm posting because I was just comparing the type certificates between the PA12 and PA14 just for fun and noticed something I found kind of strange.

gross weight is 100LB more on the 14 at 1850LB which makes sense.
cg range on the 14 is +9 to +21 vs the 12's +9 to +18.6, so a further aft cg is allowable on the 14 which explains the 80LB baggage vs just 41LB on the 12 ( the baggage capacity on the 14 is listed 4 inches aft of that on the 12 as well)
what I don't understand in the elevator travel, the PA12 has 27° up and 32° down travel. while the PA14 has 27° up as well but only 18° of down travel. that's half of the pa12! any insight on why that would be, seem's like with more allowable aft CG that more down elevator would be better in a stall. Or is my nightshift brain getting this mixed up.

One thing I can think of is maybe the stick/ control geometry is the limiting factor. also I'm not sure if the 14's came with balanced elevators or if its the same as a 12 with non balanced, if that would even make a difference for travel limits.
 
This is how I did the access door on my 2+2 PA14 project. I did not have to change the tube arrangement.
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Looks good jimbo, but that’s for the stock door opening arrangement. I’m doing the crosswind cargo door opening which squares off the bottom rear section of the opening, and in doing that mod an extra tube gets added between station 4 and 5 that ends up right where most baggage doors are. Hopefully in next day or two I’ll be that far on my fuselage so I can post a real picture not my chicken scratch drawings haha.
 
I’ve been wondering about the rigging differences between a 12 and 14 for years. The best response I received on this site was, “contact Clyde in Ohio.”
 
I was surprised to see such a difference, the wag specs are different again but I expected that with the fixed horizontal. guess I have to decide which specs I want to go with, I think the wag spec was 28° which is more then the 14 but a little less then the 12. I like more down travel travel, the snow slides right off my pa12 elevator with the stick tied ahead I like that feature.

I got another 7 hours logged on the plane today, made it back to my baggage door tubes, minus a few smaller tubes I still have to do under the door.

this first green tape shows the original tube thats normally the only one here.

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next is the additional tube that goes with the door mod. as you can see it don't give many options for a baggage door.
of any size, by the time I added a lower sill of any size I'd only have a 8" high door.
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here is with the tube dog legged a little bit, doesn't look like much but it helped door size quite a bit.

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here I used blue tape to represent the baggage door opening. I think it was close on 11 inches high now. I'm happy with the size and location so I started cutting tubes but my stomach said it was time to get some coals burning in the bbq.

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I was surprised to see such a difference, the wag specs are different again but I expected that with the fixed horizontal. guess I have to decide which specs I want to go with, I think the wag spec was 28° which is more then the 14 but a little less then the 12. I like more down travel travel, the snow slides right off my pa12 elevator with the stick tied ahead I like that feature.
Are you planning to use a fixed stabilizer? A movable trimming stabilizer will give you a greater CG range, as well as more efficient cruise settings, among other advantages.
 
Moveable stabilizer, not sure If I'm going to use a jack screw with electric motor or run a actuator like Stewart's wildcat cub has. I need to compare the weights and prices of both, if I go with jack screw I might machine my own parts.
 
here's the latest progress, got the door openings pretty much done beside the short tubes under the starboard door, I will do them once I get more short scraps after I get the rest of my 5/8 tubes installed other places.

the dog leg still looks okay done in tube instead of tape which is nice.

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other side is done normally

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I also tried using my small lathe to fishmouth the tubes instead of the slow process i've been using up to now which has been measuring the angles, going into the house on computer and printing off a template , cutting it out then back into the garage to trace it then cut and grind to shape. when you have to do that for every tube time adds up! so for now where I've been doing a lot of 5/8 tube I figured out the shim stack to center it in my tool post and then I tried an endmill, that didnt work worth a darn! hooked the upper edge constantly and curled it in, next I tried an annular cutter which worked pretty good and produced a beautiful surface finish as you can in the pic below but you had to be very careful feeding and even power feeding with a .002" per rev feed which is as fine as my lathe can do it would hook 10% of the time like an end mill so I went down a standard hole saw and things have been cooperating. I wish I built a V block attachment and used the lathe for all my coping at the beginning id be further along now for sure.
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also for those interested or curious tonight I just passed the 100Hr mark tonight! so for those interested in building that might give you an idea into a time frame for this kind of stuff, its very time consuming work, but its work thats more mentally challenging VS physically. and I'll say even this early into my build its been very rewarding, anyone considering scratch building that can dedicate the time to it I say go for it 100%!
 

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