Wednesday, July 21, 2010

notches and die stock

Yesterday, went to thread the new tie rods - only to realize that the die stock [handle] is made for a 1" O.D. die, and I have a 3/4" die. Not even the manufacturer of this die appears to make a stock for this die - that's craziness, right there. I'll figure out where to find it or make a workaround yet!

Also, got the tip bows out, and realized that they look nigh-identical, but they're not. The angle of the half-moon piece on the end where it snugs into the tip of a noserib is specific to the right and left wings. Also, the little notches in the old spars are for wing bow support and clearance. Started to contemplate how best to make a template for said notches, when I picked up the little half-round file I'd been using to round corners on metal, and realized it fit perfectly in the notch at a 45 degree angle. Template, heck - this is file to fit.

Also, finally now know what the twisted tangle of aluminum tubing was for - it's to carry air pressure from the pitot tube on the jury strut to the airspeed indicator. I'm not sure I trust it enough to reinstall it; we'll deal with that today.

While it didn't feel like much progress, the butt ribs are now ready to go on the spars! A little more progress, every day.

3 comments:

  1. Is the die round or hex?

    A hex die you can just nestle into a wrench.

    A round die...huh. I've got ideas, but they all basically boil down to "fabricate your own handle".

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  2. It's a round die, or I'd have already wrestled it with a wrench. It's all good, though - turns out that it's 13/16ths, not 3/4", and thus there's a handle for it. Not in town, but that's what the internet is for.

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  3. Suggestion for that aluminum pitot-tube air line: If you can carefully unsnarl it and roll it into a fairly-large-diameter roll/coil without kinking it, and it doesn't have any obvious cracks/holes, etc. - suggest you try to rig up some way to pressure-test it (maybe a pressure gauge on one end, and a pump fitting for an air pump on the other end?). If it will pressure-test to...say...100 - 125 psi (which you can probably pump into it with a good-sized bicycle pump), and not leak, I'd think it would be good to go...

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