Well, after a couple of days of good work, bad work, good work, I'm starting to get a little on the tired side, both mentally and physically. I just got to a fairly decent stopping point on the project today, so I decided to try to come in here to catch up on the updates that I promised y'all. This is going to be a fairly long winded one, so go turn off the T.V., pop yourself some popcorn, and settle into your chair at the computer and read on......
In our last episode, I had just finished the fabrication of the R/H aluminum fairing for the ass-end of the fuselage. Before I moved on, I felt the need to go ahead and cut out a slot for the rudder cable, before I made it hard on myself with the L/H fairing in place. This was really a pretty simple step, as I just got a string and put it in place on the L/H side, which gave me the location of where the cable came out of the fuselage. I used the two pieces of tape to simulate the fuselage skin. Some simple measurements gave me the exact location to cut the slot on the R/H fairing........
The final step to complete with this fairing was to make an angle to attach to the upper portion of it. This will act as a strenghtening device, along with having one attach point at the rear. I started by simply cutting out a piece of aluminum and "braking" it 90 degrees.....
Next, I had to use the sheet metal stretcher to make the angle match the slight curve of the top portion of the fairing, which matches the lower portion of the horizontal stabilizer. I just went nice and slow during this process, in order to keep from cracking the metal.........
It was around this point that I was making dumb little mistakes in the process (drilled a hole in finger, sanded off finger tip, you know...minor stuff like that), so I had to walk away from the sheet metal work for a little bit. I thought that making the L/H horizontal stabilizer tip might be just what I needed to get my mind right. Boy, was I ever wrong there!
What figured to be probably the most simple task on this airplane, showed me real quick, that it wasn't going down without a fight.
You see, a couple of the tips on this tail section, which are made out of balsa wood (and are purely cosmetic), have been dinged and broken over the years. No big deal, really. I just needed to splice a new piece onto this one and can probably just get away with filling in the dings on the others. So, with some balsa wood (donated by Bill Coombes) in hand, I started hacking away.........
The tip on the other side fits incredibly well, so I need to make this one much the same. I needed the contour of the trailing edge of the tip to match the one installed on the elevator. So I went over to the sander and went to work on that.......
Well crap...that didn't work. I'll fine tune it after I get the tip cut down to shape a little more.........
Well, after some (pronounced, "Too much") sanding and trimming, I managed to cut it down too short..........
Soooooo, we know where that goes now
............
So now that it was clear that I was being less stupid with aluminum parts than wooden ones, I thought it might behoove me to just go back to work on aluminum bits. I started by taking that ol' posterboard template from the right side and moving it over to the left side, only with the opposite bend. I needed to add a small section to it, as the angles were slightly different, but other than that, the process of making this side went fairly smoothly........
Initially, I was going to attach the left and right sides together with a row of screws down the bottom side, but when I thought about the added weight of the screws and the nutplates I'd have to install, along with the time it would take to install them, I decided to simply rivet the two halves together. I first needed to dimple all of the holes, in both fairings, to accomodate the countersunk rivets. I reckon I could've just used my hand squeezer for this, but for whatever reason, used the deep throated rivet tool I've got. This thing is pretty handy for those hard to reach areas that need to be dimpled, and all it takes to use is a big ol' hammer. Finally...something even I can work.
..........
Once the dimpling was done, I just clecoed it all together and then shot the rivets in. No real rocket science here........
This fairing will require the tail of the airplane to be in the air in order for removal, but frankly, the tail is typically up on a stool or something anyway when working on the airplane, so this is no big deal. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.............
So now that the easy work is done, it was time to make the upper fairing. I knew this was going to be a challenge, but I wasn't skeered.
I wanted to make this as a single piece, which was going to be difficult, so it was pretty important to have a good posterboard pattern to start with here. I used a shape finder to get me the basic shape & width of the leading edge of the vertical fin so that I could get started. Then it was just the same ol' cut and fit process.........
Once the pattern was all made, I just laid it flat on the aluminum and traced out the pattern. I used some "O" material here, which is still in it's "soft" state, thereby making it much easier to work with. I was going to need it for this piece for sure.........
Once the piece was cut out, I started just working the metal around to make it fit where I needed it to. Everything started out okay..........
...but I eventually started to see that the metal just wasn't going to make all of those shapes I wanted it to. I tried everything I could think of...hammer, shot bag, hammer & shot bag, English wheel, dirty words, nice words, more dirty words, etc.............
Eventually, I just had to realize that I was beyond my ability to get this fabricated in the amount of time I had to get it done. That sucked, as it was really fairly close to what I had in mind...but not close enough. I want it right, not almost right. Soooooo, we know what that means.........
I'm not sure where my mind was at this point, but for whatever reason, I thought I could just make that same piece, in two halves, out of heat treated aluminum this time. I started by cutting out the initial shape, then beat the "curl" into it with a hammer, then wheeling the dents out and forming the shape. This too, was a huge failure............
Sooooo, by now, you surely know what that means, right?..............
Okay, so it was time for me to sit down and rethink this whole thing. I wasn't going to give up, but I had to stop wasting time with building scrap. What I came up with is to just make this thing in several pieces. I once again started with making the obligatory posterboard pattern of the first piece in the puzzle............
Then, after tracing the pattern on the aluminum, I cut it out and formed it to shape. I went ahead and used the heat treated aluminum here, since there were no real tricky curves to make...........
I'm finally happy with how this is turning out. So, although I've got a few more pieces to make, I can see that I'm definitely going to be able to conquer this stinkin' fairing.............
So, with all of that being said, I figured I'd stop on a high note for a change and call it a day. I'll be back out here at 3 a.m. to get some more work done on it before having to get back to the "real" job tomorrow.
I sure wish they'd let me take a few months leave of absence to get this thing done. I wonder if they'd even notice I was gone?
Gary
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That part was pretty straight forward, and I didn't take any pictures of it. However, there was one area that needed a little "persuasion" in order to clear the elevator. I needed to put a small recessed area in the upper portion of the fairing to insure free travel of the elevator. I accomplished this by finding a hammer (or in this case, a sheet metal dolly) that had the radius I was looking for to beat the aluminum in the direction I wanted it to move. I smoothed the area out by using the English Wheel. Only very light pressure was used with the wheel, as I was merely getting the hammer marks out and not wanting to stretch the metal too much. It is pretty much smoothed out, but I'll finalize everything later (once I get the upper fairing built, later)..........
