I'm catching up again on the previous months activities here. I don't think I'll get over how much work gets done in retrospect vs. what is standing right in front of me. I often feel like I'm making no progress whatsoever and then to have to journal about the progress - it's a good reminder to keep pressing forward.
The biggest highlight is obviously getting the fuselage on the wheels for the first time. I still need to torque out the bolts on the wheels themselves so they hold air. There's a gentle leak in the two mains but it's not enough to worry about at the moment.
I've had some challenges in retrofitting the Beringer wheels onto the Sling provided parts but those were overcome with consulting a few local folks with expertise in their respective areas. The nose wheel was one of the more interesting ones in that the axel for the wheel wasn't going to work with the Sling supplied bolt. This necessitated boring out the Beringer axel to allow for the mounting bolt to be inserted to actually mount the wheel. The machine shop I tool the problem to was able to bore out the axel to within 1/1,000th of an inch and has a nice smooth insertion of the bolt with no wiggle whatsoever. The bore removed a small amount of material and I believe it won't be a problem - ah the joys of an experimental airplane eh? Let's hope I'm not wrong on this one.
The wheels overall presented the bigger challenge, but through conversations with other folks who have crossed this challenge before I did I believe I have arrived in a good spot.
I also used my time this month to replace the incorrect wing hinge which was installed way back last fall. It only took a few days to correct this problem and I can now safely say the wing is done with the aileron and flap for the right wing is complete.
The fuel tanks presented a whole new challenge. The biggest hurdle was that I missed steps 5.- Cleco the back channel, and 6. - Remove the fuel tank assembly from the wing and complete assembly. Had I understood the weight of what I was doing a bit better I would have realized that when I assembled the rear portion of the fuel tank in the fuel tank jig I would have realized I wasn't aligning to the wing but to the jig - which wasn't square for the wing. Because of this I introduced a twist to the fuel tank resulting in it completely not fitting.
To correct this it required removing all the rivets holding the back portion of the fuel tank, gently prying off the rear portion of the fuel tank, cleaning all of that up and then reassembling it correctly. As of right now I have one of the two fuel tanks completely done, tested and mounted to the wing with rivets. I gotta say - following the instructions would have been a HUGE game changer because the whole thing went together easy-peasy the second time. In speaking with Evan about this he said by about the second set of wings you get good at them. I just didn't realize I was going to get to do that on my first plane. Lessons learned - let's try to stay away from doing that again now shall we?
Another fun challenge to overcome was to have the brake selector mount re-engineered to have a better mount than the two mounts provided from Sling. Someone someday is going to have to explain to me how Sling ships a brake valve they know doesn't fit to the right angle adapter. The options to resolve this is to re-thread the valve (not my first choice) or buy a new valve that does fit. So I opted for the new valve - but it didn't fit well with the mount Sling provided. A buddy at work is really into 3D printing, so I took the problem to him and he spent a day modeling up and printing a mount that fit perfectly. I am really happy with that arrangement and I really doubt it'll be a problem - ever.
Mounting the engine mount to the front of the plane involved getting the nose wheel yoke working smoothly. This was a task in and of itself because the only way to really test it was to assemble the entire setup, test and then back it out if it didn't fit well. It's hard to do this because I want to use bigger more powerful tools to move faster. The problem with that route is if you take too much material off then you're in a worse spot than if you don't take enough off. But I do think I struck the right balance in this case.
The next few weeks I have a couple of vacations coming up which will impede my progress for the rest of the month of October - but I think the avionics will be the next thing to go in after the heater. We'll see. I do spend a fair amount of time testing fitting stuff and then seeing what goes in next before I make something permanent.
The biggest highlight is obviously getting the fuselage on the wheels for the first time. I still need to torque out the bolts on the wheels themselves so they hold air. There's a gentle leak in the two mains but it's not enough to worry about at the moment.
I've had some challenges in retrofitting the Beringer wheels onto the Sling provided parts but those were overcome with consulting a few local folks with expertise in their respective areas. The nose wheel was one of the more interesting ones in that the axel for the wheel wasn't going to work with the Sling supplied bolt. This necessitated boring out the Beringer axel to allow for the mounting bolt to be inserted to actually mount the wheel. The machine shop I tool the problem to was able to bore out the axel to within 1/1,000th of an inch and has a nice smooth insertion of the bolt with no wiggle whatsoever. The bore removed a small amount of material and I believe it won't be a problem - ah the joys of an experimental airplane eh? Let's hope I'm not wrong on this one.
The wheels overall presented the bigger challenge, but through conversations with other folks who have crossed this challenge before I did I believe I have arrived in a good spot.
I also used my time this month to replace the incorrect wing hinge which was installed way back last fall. It only took a few days to correct this problem and I can now safely say the wing is done with the aileron and flap for the right wing is complete.
The fuel tanks presented a whole new challenge. The biggest hurdle was that I missed steps 5.- Cleco the back channel, and 6. - Remove the fuel tank assembly from the wing and complete assembly. Had I understood the weight of what I was doing a bit better I would have realized that when I assembled the rear portion of the fuel tank in the fuel tank jig I would have realized I wasn't aligning to the wing but to the jig - which wasn't square for the wing. Because of this I introduced a twist to the fuel tank resulting in it completely not fitting.
To correct this it required removing all the rivets holding the back portion of the fuel tank, gently prying off the rear portion of the fuel tank, cleaning all of that up and then reassembling it correctly. As of right now I have one of the two fuel tanks completely done, tested and mounted to the wing with rivets. I gotta say - following the instructions would have been a HUGE game changer because the whole thing went together easy-peasy the second time. In speaking with Evan about this he said by about the second set of wings you get good at them. I just didn't realize I was going to get to do that on my first plane. Lessons learned - let's try to stay away from doing that again now shall we?
Another fun challenge to overcome was to have the brake selector mount re-engineered to have a better mount than the two mounts provided from Sling. Someone someday is going to have to explain to me how Sling ships a brake valve they know doesn't fit to the right angle adapter. The options to resolve this is to re-thread the valve (not my first choice) or buy a new valve that does fit. So I opted for the new valve - but it didn't fit well with the mount Sling provided. A buddy at work is really into 3D printing, so I took the problem to him and he spent a day modeling up and printing a mount that fit perfectly. I am really happy with that arrangement and I really doubt it'll be a problem - ever.
Mounting the engine mount to the front of the plane involved getting the nose wheel yoke working smoothly. This was a task in and of itself because the only way to really test it was to assemble the entire setup, test and then back it out if it didn't fit well. It's hard to do this because I want to use bigger more powerful tools to move faster. The problem with that route is if you take too much material off then you're in a worse spot than if you don't take enough off. But I do think I struck the right balance in this case.
The next few weeks I have a couple of vacations coming up which will impede my progress for the rest of the month of October - but I think the avionics will be the next thing to go in after the heater. We'll see. I do spend a fair amount of time testing fitting stuff and then seeing what goes in next before I make something permanent.
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