February 2, 2009
       A few shots..
                  at the new homestead.

When I pulled up to the back of the building I had an entire crew waiting for me; Denise and Bobby, a New York City transplant. He and his wife, Susan, live across the hall from Denise. Anywho... I had plenty of people to help off load the fuselage. Here are a few pictures of it resting in it's new home.

March 25, 2009
       Plan A and B...
                  ...am I really in limbo.

Get all pumped to make something, then along the way you start to get good at it and the first thing you were happy with doesn't make you happy any more. And so it was with the stick sockets for the Torque Tube Controls. The second stick socket turned out better than the first and now I'm waiting on the material from Aircraft Spruce to arrive so that I can re-make the first one. (whew!) I'm being thrown for a loop. Plan A is out the window and now I'm caught without a plan "B"; I'm in limbo.

OK... got a plan.
Last night I thought I would re-visit the servo-trim tab. I've been so far removed from that part of the build I spent the entire night re-reading about it and referencing the plans. (I'm so confused...) Decided that tomorrow I would begin building a few fittings that are associated with the Torque Tube Controls.

Looked over the plans and saw that I needed to make the Reverser and the Idler Arms. The Reverser is as good a part to make as any. Had to re-draw the fitting that I had done in DeltaCAD. In order to get the full travel of the elevators the upper hole needs to be 1/8" farther from the 1/2" pivot tube than what the plans show. Of course... since I'm working off the Radial Supplements also, I need to cross-reference this to make sure that I'm using the same dimensioned piece. (I did. It does. Made the change.)

Spent tonight re-drawing the measurements on the piece of .75" square x .o65 tubing, drilling the pilot holes and drilling the complete 1/2" hole for the pivot tube. Yep... that's it for 2.4 hours. Was closer to three, but I spent that extra time looking for a few tools that I put in a place that I would never... find them, apparently.

This Saturday, I'll finish the Reverser. The additional tubing is suppose to arrive from Aircraft Spruce on Saturday too, so I'll get started back on the Torque Tube Controls. woooo hooooooo ! For the time being... I'll be out of limbo.

March 28, 2009
       DAMN...
                  ...supplemental plans.

I checked and checked then re-check before ordering the materials needed for the Torque Tube and associated pieces (you see where this is going...)

Went down stairs to finish the Reverser before starting on the Stick Socket again; drilled the holes, cut the slots, rounded the edges, took 150 grit to the rough edges... OK... ready to weld in the last piece to call this finished. Took the 1/2" x .o35 tube in hand, but wait... let me just triple check my double-double check. Always good to see what material is to be used just before making it permanent, right ?

On my way out to the garage workshop, to weld this puppy on, I stop by the plans, unrolled them and looked at the specs. Hmmmm... the supplemental plans have an arrow with a circled 18, 5/8" x .o58; but they're showing that as the tubing that is welded to the fuselage (a set-up similar to the rudder pedals.)

Now that I'm looking at it again... that can't be. I'll need to look at the Standard's plans... so I unroll the Standard plans. Hmmmm... let's see... here it is... transverser... made out of 3/4" x .065 square tubing... oh here's the size of the pivot tube... 1/2" x .o58. DAMN !

damn... damn.. damndamndamndamn DAMN

First, why is it a different size than the Radial, and second, why the heck didn't I see this the first ten times I looked over the two ? (maybe it's because I was trying to look at too many different areas at the same time ? maybe) Regardless, now... I know I don't have an 1/2" x .o58 tubing if I didn't order it. So... I go up and check that extensive material list that I have, where I compared the material I have versus what I need... for this Reverser, Torque Tube Controls and Main Landng Gear. There it is in black and white.

  Reverser
    Need 3/4” square x .065 12”
    Need bushing 5/8” x .058 (12”)
    Have: 1/2” x .035 (for pivot) (take from above Idler Arm pivots)

Wrong... wrong.. wrongwrongwrong

In my quest to combine all of these materials for one order, I somehow shuffled the numbers for this Transverser and now need to order in the correct tubing.

Spent the next half hour seeing if any of the miscellaneous tubing I got from Gus would fit the discription. Found a piece of 1/2" that had about a .120 wall on it; almost a solid piece of stock. (wonder what the heck that would be used for?) Cut a 3" piece off of it and was going to do something with it but came to the conclusion that it would take longer to hollow that out to the correct ID than it would to be send off for it from Aircraft Spruce. Hey... I just got some tubing from there today... maybe, just maybe they put a length of that size tubing in with it. Wadda think ? yeah... right

Another $9.oo for shipping. I'll have to figure out what else to add to this order to defray some of that cost. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh !

March 29, 2009
       Still learning...
                  how to make stick sockets... apparently

Sunday, 12:30PM and I head down to the workshop to make that last stick socket; meausre, cut, drill and then weld on the washers. Then... it's on to another part of the Torque Tube Controls.

The pain in all of this is setting up the cross-sliding vice on the drill, with the jig, so that the drill bit goes completely through the tube and out the other side, dead center. No matter what I did... it seemed to be working against me. Looking closer I could see, 1. that when I clamped the V jig to the block, it lifted on one side... ok, 2. um... couldn't find anything else that was happening to make it come out the otherside off center. I couldn't even get it to track straight... after fooling with it for half an hour.

After trying to get this to work, I ended up centering the V-jig in one spot and moving the tube. Kinda goes against why I bought this cross-siding vice, eh ?

Anyways... I didn't decided on moving the tube, instead of turning the controls on the cross-sliding vice, until I screwed up that forth stick socket. By that time I had enough, wasn't pissed, but had enough of wasting time trying to get the cross-sliding vice to work.

At the end of the day, I ended up making two stick sockets; the final one darn near close to being perfect. A few more minutes spent on cutting two additional elongated washer and I'm all set to weld this up. Five point one hours and I'm calling it a day. Welding these on will need to wait until tomorrow.

The learning never ends.

uh... more on the next page