Latest Work Completed Mantua, New Jersey
Original Site:
September 2004
E-mail: usav8or@yahoo.com
Making the mount...
April 19 - 30, 2021 Bending and grinding...
and what it's all about.
More time put on Big Ass Bird's motor mounts...
Making the final bends on the 3-piece mounts; a few of the outer pieces need a few bends, and then all the bends on the center pieces. Each of the center pieces have two bends.
Finished up the outer pieces and made the first bend on a center piece. The fit was SO good, that the wing slipped right over the base of the area it was bent over. TOO GOOD... there was som excess material on that side wing and it bent the vertical on the center piece back from being vertical. I grabbed my Dremel tool and cut the excess out between the two... thus making a gap, not too large, but larger than I had wanted.
With that information in hand, I went back and filed down the bottoms of all the side wings so that I wouldn't have that issue with the rest of them. And... in doing so, I wouldn't need to spend an excessive amount of time perfecting my Dremel Tooling Skills.
okay... all bends have been made, so I decided to cut the existing motor mount brackets off before beginning the welding of these brackets. Not a fun job going back and destroying the brackets that I took so long to make... But then... a nice feeling knowing that I am close to welding the new ones back in their place.
A good feeling knowing that I'm close to where I was with the build back in August. YIKES!
I started the build thinking as long as you follow the plans, and instructions, nothing would go "south". I'd be finished in 2500 hours or so... I, as you can see, didn't find that to be true. I've had a learning curve on many of the smaller biplane projects I've taken on. And, I've taken it ALL on. Don't let "good enough" be good enough... strive for that EXCELLENCE that we all have. There is a minimum standard set by the aircraft building industry... achieve at least that... and above, if that is your EXCELLENCE.