April 18 - 23, 2022
       Messing about...
                          in planes.

A recuring thought I have is an often seen/heard quote from "The Wind In The Willows"... Mole, speaking to Ratty: "Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing, - absolutely nothing - half as much worth doing as simply messing about in boats (insert planes).

Funny... not haha, but funny that... "Wind In The Willows" was on the side of my T-craft when I bought it.

Well, this time it's messing around with brakes and tires for the biplane. Spent this week getting things ready to begin crafting the cowling. And... it looks like I'm still taking care of the wheel business. A LOT of learning about these wheels and brakes. Add on top of that, figuring out how to raise the engine high enough to lift it into place. My thoughts... attach a wood structure to the ceiling joist above the area where I'll hang the engine. Box it out at the top using additional 2x4's and 4x4's to strength it up. It's 12 feet in the air (the ceiling)... so the box structure would attach to the ceiling and come down about 4 feet. A set of 4x4's would then come up from the floor and attach to the bottom of the box structure. Support bracing would come off of both the lower and upper structures to keep things in place. A block and tackle would then be attached to the box structure at the 8' height. At least those are my thoughts for right now...

A little bit of wait time for the grease... which showed up early on Friday. The work session that day included putting on a pair of plastic gloves so that I could scoop a dollup of grease into the palm of my hand and then take the wheel bearing and push it into the mass of grease to fill it. Four times that, and I'm done with that messy job.

A little bit of learning the correct sequence for attaching the wheel/brake combination. With the MATCO's... or at least the ones I have. I need to put the disc in place, then secure the second pad (wrench it into place) then slide on the firsst wheel bearing, then the wheel, then the second wheel bearing... then secure with the nut. Finished.

Between the head scratching with figuring out how to lift the engine into place, and attaching the brakes/wheels... I filled up my work sessions on Big Ass Bird this week.

Now for the engine cowling...

November 28, 2025
       More than lifting...
                          It's progress.

The day after ThanksLiving, and yes, I spelled ThanksLiving correctly. Been Vegan for sometime now. No animals were hurt in the making of our ThanksLiving dinner. [thankyouverymuch.]

The only day in the coming days where the temps are supposed to, well... close to 60. Low 50's at best, but still nice inside the hangar.

Opened the door to the hangar and yes, BIG ASS BIRD is still sitting there up on the saw horses. My 40 mile hike to the airport is for two reasons today... get the exact length of the bolts for the mounting of the throttle quads, and to lift the front end of the fuselage up soes I can attach the front landing gear.

- 3/16 x 2.6625. Now to order the (8) bolts with nuts.
- Lift of the fuselage... just about there.

Nobody at the airport today... nooooooobody at least that I knew. Black Friday... I get it. Day after ThanksLiving... people away visiting family... I get it.

Me, lifting the front end of BIG ASS BIRD with rudimentary tools, aka a 2 ton Diehard bottle jack, dead-man, milk crate, 2x4's, and some good ol' ingenuity. 2.7hrs later and still need to lift that puppy up a little bit more; say... about 15 more inches.

That's it, folks... Next week I hope to be back visiting with BIG ASS BIRD and putting a few more hours on the project.

HAPPY THANKSLIVING, Everyone!

December 6, 2025
       WAIT!
                          PUT ON THE BRAKES!

LOVE IT!
More time spent with BIG ASS BIRD. This year's hours haven't added up to much but they are all hours moving forward!

Out to FNL to work on BIG ASS BIRD.
The Plan:
1. Mount the landing Gear
2. Mount the brakes

Used the locating pins I made for the motor mount (locating pins for aligning the holes of the part with the holes of the bracket.) This help tremendously since I had to make sure the front bracket and the rear bracket were aligned before inserting the hardware.

The locating pins were the only easy find... BUT, I did find the exact hardware for the front and rear mounting points; AN7-42A for the front, and DAMN! I didn't write down the rear ones (Note to Self.)

I have an Aircraft Spruce amount of hardware that I need to label and log into some sort of spread sheet so that I know what I have instead of just buying new all the time. Something good to do on those cold winter weekends... until I get a heater for the hangar. :/

Not long after I finished mounting BOTH brakes I saw that I mounted the incorrectly. That'll be a quick fix before I mount the tires to the brakes next time out. :\

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Don't look! They're on backwards! :/



By the way... this should be under thewheels.html me thinks. More mounting of the brakes to BIG ASS BIRD than the fuselage. Think I'll put it there as well.

Until next time...