Cut the "fairings" for the streamlined tubing. Welded 3/4 of one on and then ran out of gas. Spent another 45 minutes trying to weld. Actual time spent on this was 1.5hrs.
Jan 3
4hrs
Started to modify the existing station 2 1/4 ribs to fit balsa fillers. Didn't work. Made all the pieces for one new rib. Still need to cut the capstrips for the second one.
Jan 5
1.1hrs
Cut the balsa fillers and the capstrips for the 2nd rib, station 2 1/4.
Jan 12
N/G
Some builders log every little thing they do on the biplane. For instance... I went and had the acetylene tank filled today. Should I log the 1 hour it took me to do it ?... not gonna.
Jan 17
2hrs
Welded on the three additional fairings on the streamlined tubing to axle joints.
Jan 19
N/A
Spent countless hours looking for a few "missing" drawings. Found them tonight.
Jan 30
N/A
Over the past few weeks I've been looking over the plans; again and again and again. Asked JimW a few questions about the upper wing center section. Spent time cleaning up an area in the basement workshop today to put the 65" x 49" wood layout/jig plan for the center section.
Feb 1
1.7hrs
A little more welding on the landing gear. Still a little more to do. Actually wasn't happy with the "look" of two of the welds. Filing down... another line of welding.
Feb 7
2.8hrs
Finished up with the last two welds on the main landing gear. The gear is finally ready to be fitted up to the fuselage.
Feb 12
N/A
Placed the order for the Upper Wing Center Section plywood. Tomorrow I'll order the sitka spruce and glue. The ply will be shipping common carrier (slow boat) and the spruce will ship VIA UPS. Ply will take about a week... the spruce two days.
Feb 16
1.5hrs
Reviewed Upper Wing Center Section plans again so that I am positive I'm ordering the right material.
Feb 17
N/A
Went to the FedEx Kinkos around the corner from work during lunch today and had copies made of the Inboard and Outboard rib drawings so that I can use them on my jigs.
Feb 19
N/A
Ordered the spruce for the Upper Wing Center Section. Still need to order the glue and screws, and misc tubes and aluminum angles.
Feb 27
.3hrs
Took the main landing gear over to Whitey's to fit it up to the fuselage. IT FITS !
1.1hrs
Cut the mahogany ply for the first side of the re-made station 2.25 rib. (re-made because I insterted balsa into areas where I will be making holdes for the push-pull tubes) Glued it on. Oh yeah... and glued all the 1/4" cap strips together.
Feb 28
1.5hrs
Took the rib out of the jig. Cut out the two spar openings. Flipped it over and glued on the second piece of mahogany ply.
Mar 8
.9hrs
Laid up and glued first side of second rib. (movin' fast now)
Mar 9
.8hrs
Flipped yesterday's 1/2 completed rib, inserted balsa fillers, and glued it all up with the final piece of mahogany ply on the second side.
Mar 23
.5hrs
Figured out and wrote down my plan of action for the upper wing center section.
Mar 28
4hrs
Made the jigs for the inboard and outboard ribs for the upper wing center section. Confirmed size of wood to be used for the upper and lower cap strips on those ribs and cut them down from the stock I had gotten from Gus (finally took an inventory of the spruce I just purchased from ACS.) Cut the bending jig for bending the upper and lower cap strips.
Mar 29
1.8hrs
Made a new bending jig for the 5/8" wide cap strips. Cut down the 5/8" x 3/4" that I cut yesterday. This time I cut into 1/4" thick strips. Laid these up on the jig and clamped them down. Should... should have a nice set of cap strips tomorrow.
Mar 30
1.2hrs
Last nights work looks real good. Took those cap strips out and cut new 1/4" strips for the last two 5/8" wide cap strips. Glued and clamped them up.
Mar 31
1.8hrs
Cut another rib jig, for the 1.25" wide cap strips for the Upper Wing Center Section. Cut the 1.25" wide spurce into 1/4" thick strips. Glued them up and clamped them. Two down...
Apr 1
1.1hrs
See above. Same thing... different day. All except making of the jig.
Apr 3
N/A
Moved the fuselage from Whitey's to my garage. Can't do much work on it when it's at the airport. Needed to clean up/out the garage to get it back in there. Spent MANY hours on it today, just not adding it to the build hours.
Apr 4
.2hrs
Yep, the gear fits where it's suppose to. Now I need to check to make sure that it hasn't twisted out of alignment. Good luck with that one.
Apr 5
1.2hrs
Figured out the angle I'm going to put the rear hand hold "lifts" at and made a real quick jig out of a 2x4. Yeah... that didn't work. Took a few pieces of MDF and cut the angle then glued a few pieces together. Tomorrow I'll tack on those lifts... maybe even weld them on.
Apr 6
1.6hrs
Tacked and welded on the rear lifts.
Apr 7
1.4hrs
Started cleaning and wiping the fuselage down with Naval Jelly. Still a little to do.
Apr 8
1hr
Cleaned up and wiped Naval Jelly on the remaining parts of the fuselage. The remaining 1/2 I spent cleaning up the excess off the sides of the cap strips I made the other week. A half hour and only two are cleaned top and bottom.
70% Finished !
Apr 9
1.3hrs
Filed and sanded down the remaining six cap strips.
Apr 10
.6hrs
Review of Upper Wing Center Section Plans and images online of other cente sections. Decided that I would cut blanks of the trailing edge of the ribs so that I could route four each of the three.
Apr 12
.9hrs
Cut out patterns for the above mentioned trailing edge pieces of the ribs, glued to 1/2" MDF and cut them out. Ready for routing tomrrow.
Apr 13
1.4hrs
Traced the three sets of four trailing edge ribs on the 1/4" birch plywood. Rough cut the pieces out, glued them up and then weighted them.
Apr 15
1.4hrs
Routed out the trailing edge ribs for the Upper Wing Center Section.
Apr 17
2.5hrs
Cutting the holes and trimming/filing the outside edge of the two lower wing butt ribs. Just about there.
Apr 18
1.3hrs
Cut both spar openings in the remaining butt rib.
Apr 19
1.3hrs
Working on the inboard rib jig for the Upper Wing Center Section. Marking the upper and lower cap strips for notching.
Apr 20
1.4hrs
Ripping, cutting, fitting the vertical cap strips for the first
of four Upper Wing Center Section ribs.
Apr 21
1.5hrs
Cut/notched/filed the cap strips for the second Inboard Rib. A little more work with the jig and they're now ready to be glued up. Checked my DeltaCAD drawing to see which piece of 1/16" ply I am cutting the sides from.
Apr 22
.5hrs
Glued up the first side of the first of four ribs for the Upper Wing Center Section.
Apr 23
.7hrs
Flipped the first rib out of the jig and glued the ply on the other side. Jigged and glued the pieces to the second rib, capped with ply and weighted.
Apr 25
2.3hrs
Cut and notched the cap strips for the lst of the last two Upper Wing Center Section ribs.
Apr 26
1.4hrs
Cut, notched and glued the 1st of the 2 remaining ribs for the Upper Wing Center Section. Glued the second side onto the rib I pulled out of the first jig.
Apr 27
1.9hrs
Pulled the first rib out and then cut and notched the remaining rib for the Upper Wing Center Section.
Apr 28
N/A
Tired of fighting with the Harbor Freight metal bandsaw and picked up a 1950's Walker-Turner cast iron, heavy as anything wood/metal bandsaw. Got it for a nice price off of Craig's List. Took four hours from the time I left the house until the time I had it sitting on the floor in my workshop.
Apr 29
1.5hrs
Needed to rip a ply cover for the last Upper Wing Center Section rib from a half sheet of ply. Mixed up the glue for the two remaining ribs; glued the vertical and horizontal cap strips for the last rib and glued and weighted the first side cover on it then glued the 2nd side to the other rib.
Apr 30
1.3hrs
Took the remaining Upper Wing Center Section rib out of the jig, flipped and glued the ply on the second side. Trimmed the edges on the three ribs that were finished both sides. Ready for the finally filing/sanding finish.
May 1
N/A
Spent two hours cleaning up the shop - it was a disaster. Needed to make room for my two new toys, er tools.
May 2
1.3hrs
A quick wipe down of the fuselage with Naval Jelly to keep it preserved. Filed and sanded down the remaining Upper Wing Center Section rib.
May 3
1.3hrs
Re-read what JimW had to say about the Upper Wing Center Section on the biplane forum. Looked over the plans and planned a course of action.
May 5
1.3hrs
Trimmed and filed the front and back over-hangs on the 1.25" wide ribs. Orignally thought that I was going to cut and box in those two openings on the outboard ribs. Another day before I can do that.
May 6
1.6hrs
Filed and sanded the ends on the two remaining Upper Wing Center Section ribs. Took measurements from the drawings, for the cutouts for the two outboard ribs and drew them up on DeltaCAD. I'll print four of these out tomorrow and then make the cuts and box them in.
May 8
1hr
Cut hole in the first of 2 ribs.
May 9
.8hrs
Cut the 2nd of 2 holes.
1.5hrs
Cut plywood caps for two side of the hole opening. Had quite a bit of "squaring" up to do.
May 10
1.5hrs
Same as the later part of yesterday, only I had to cut one of the caps out because it dried in a little skewed. Still one side of one hole opening still to cap.
May 11
2.3hrs
Looking over the Upper Wing Center Section drawings. Working out the spars and spar blocks, etc. Drawing them on DeltaCAD to make sure what I'm thinking is what is on the assorted pages of the plans.
May 17
1.6hrs
Cut the test spars for the Upper Wing Center Section.
May 18
2.2hrs
Cut the four different ply spar doublers for the test I'm doing. Made one small angle cut that was wrong but made a note of it on my test piece. It's all coming together now.
May 27
2.1hrs
Finished creating the test pieces. Test fit the fittings up to them next time... then on to making the real deals.
May 31
1.9hrs
Cut to length both spars for the Upper Wing Center Section. Cut the angles on both of them too.
Jun 2
1.9hrs
Cut the spar doublers for the Upper Wing Center Section rear spar.
Jun 3
1.1hrs
Cut the spar doublers for the Upper Wing Center Section forward spar. Trimmed the excess ply from around the hole opening on one of the outboard ribs.
Jun 4
1.3hrs
Glued spar doublers to one side of both the forward and rear Upper Wing Center Section spars.
Jun 7
1.1hrs
Glued
on the final
four spar doublers for the Upper Wing Center Section
!
Jun 8
1.7hrs
Cut the lightening holes in the Upper Wing Center Section Nose Ribs.
1800 hours
Jun 9
.5hrs
Review of plans. Decided I'll work on the trailing edge bow first.
Jun 13
1.1
I actually spent 3.8hrs fighting with making this bow jig. Turns out my router was taking a slow crapper... thus making it difficult to cut clean lines until the end when it stopped working. A little over an hour was productive and that's what I'm marking down as my time.
Jun 14
1hr
Went out and bought a new router. Spent an hour making the jig to hold the router that will in turn cut the radius of the jig. Probably another hour to go before it's ready
Jun 20
1.6hrs
Completed jig for making the Upper Wing Center Section trailing edge.
June 22
2hrs
Additional work to get jig ready for use. Mixed enough glue to clamp up three of the six 1/8" thick spruce pieces.
Jun 23
1.2hrs
Gave the wood a quick sanding. Made sure all the excess glue was sanded from the bottom of last night's glueing then I glued up the remaining three peices of spruce to the Upper Wing Center Section trail edge.
Jun 24
1.1hrs
Filed and sanded the excess glue off the the trailing edge. Need to shape the profile on it now.
Jun 30
1.2hrs
Cut spruce for the nail strip of the Upper Wing Center Section. Glued/nailed up and clamped to dry.
Jul 2
.4hrs
Spent .8 hours on the project tonight. Point four of that attempting to rip a piece of spruce into 1/8" thick. Waste of time. Spent the rest of the time cleaning the edges of the first nail strip.