Mantua, New Jersey
Original Site:
September 2004
E-mail: usav8or@yahoo.com
Making the mount...
July 15, 2016 Two more done...
one to go.
Glad I worked from home today... Needed to pick up a tank of oxygen for the welding set-up. Did that during lunch. And... that kept me running full steam ahead with the motor mounts.
Two hours... two more motor mounts welded up. These welds almost look as unpleasent as yesterdays... like WTH ??? Maybe it's the number seven torch... TOO MUCH heat ? So... I tried the number three which took some time but the welds look better. Wished that number five was putting out a nice flame... maybe I'll try cleaning the tip with the right size drill bit ???
Ready, but not pretty... to tack into position. Get these puppies tacked on and I can then figure out the position of the holes for the firewall. Get that... and I can then get started on the sheet metal work.
July 16, 2016 All done...
Time for a Pub run.
A morning session on the biplane... wanted to get the last motor mount welded up. Took about an hour... and it's finished.
Planned on another session but got a text from Mr. White and headed out on a pub tour, VIA bikes, instead. All said and done from my house back to my house... 19 miles. Met up with Chris about two miles from my place; Barnsboror Inn. From there we headed into the country to a placed called "Carolina Blues". Did a run to "The Landmark Inn" but didn't stop... passed the "PB Dinner" as well.
Our next brew stop was at "Kelly Green Brewery", a nice little brew-pub in the dry town of Pitman, NJ. After a few #99's there we headed to Chris' place for a few then a ride over to Bean's place in Glassboro. Met up with him and his wife; his cousin from Canada was there and his brother had stopped down from central Jersey. After a few brews and dinner... back through Pitman where Chris peeled off for his place and I for another 5 miles back to mine.
Temps were in the high 90's all day, but the brew kept us cooled off the entire ride.
July 18, 2016 It's on...
They're on.
All welded up but I wasn't happy with the look on two little sections; one section of two fittings. So... I tried making them look nice. Didn't work. The more heat I put to them the more metal I added... didn't do a damn thing for them. Finally gave it up...
Tacked the first two on and after the other two cooled off enough I tacked those on as well NOW I can offically say... the motor mount fittings are on the fuselage; tacked, but on the fuselage...
If you've been following along, it's been a long road to travel getting these made and tacked onto the fuselage. Whereas must builders are welding on bushings to their fuselage, I was lucky enough to go on a year and a half search for the plans and then make the fittings. One heck of a lot of learning...
October 29, 2016 It's on...
They're on.
While I wait to make a few bends on those side formers (for attaching the sheet metal)... I'm keeping busy. Not just sitting around waiting for that to happen so that I can continue what I WAS doing.
The motor mounts are tacked but not finished welded. Decided that I'd dive into that today. In a little over two hours I was able to weld six of the eight sides. Need to flip the fuselage to get at the remaining two.
December 21, 2016 Cutting...
Then the grinding...
Hello, Winter...
First day of winter; the shortest day of the year. Got some work done on the motor mount.
As written above, the motor mounts are, um, mounted/welded onto station zero-zero. The engine ring is freed from its original mounting tubes but the tubing left from the cut still needs to be removed. Spent over an hour tonight removing most of it using a cut-off wheel.
Next thing I need to do is grind off most of the remaining tubing then begin making the jig and then the tube structure for the new engine mount.
December 22, 2016 Grinding...
Then the filing...
More work on the engine ring. Needed to grind down the left-over tubing from when I took the cut-off wheel to it.
It's close to being ready for aligning, fitting up of tubes and welding... to make the motor mount. Looking back in a few notes I made... Dale has his 16.5inches from station 0-0. I belive Trevor's father has it at 15inches. I've got to find what Miki did. That'll be the closest thing for me to do... I think.
Looking for the bushings for the UC-78 motor mount brackets/fittings. Just emailed Terry Sullivan and asked. I just thought of posting this to a page on Facebook; "Antique Aircraft Parts Exchange".
December 23, 2016 Did the filing...
now some sanding...
It's taking a lot of work to get this engine ring to the point of being able to start building back up on it. I can only imagine some of the builders out there with airframes they purhased thinking they'll save some time, only to find out that there's a multitude of wrongs that need to be righted before they can really start moving forward. (whew!)
If you've been following along you can see that I've been working on this engine ring for several days; back about a year ago I cut the ring off the rest of the structure, just recently I used a cut-off tool to cut most of that excess tubing off, I then ground most of what was left from using the cut-off tool, and just now I used a file to get it real close to the shape of the ring itself. Tomorrow I'll be sanding those areas smooth.
Yesterday it was a steady hour of working the grinding tool. Today it was a little over an hour of filing filing and more filing. I'm getting there...
Side note: Before I can start building the mount I need to buy the bushings so that I can align the mounting tubes correctly. I've been busy using several of the social media in addition to the old email mething. I'll let you know what I find.
December 26, 2016 The search for...
the elusive motor mount bushing.
Spent many an hour yesterday AND today trying to find the bushings for the UC-78/Radial Skybolt motor mount.
Still getting good suggestions from the biplane forum. Ben had a good lead for Air Repair; he actually restored a UC-78 and got those rubber mounts from there. Got hold of Pete from Air Repair and he said "they were probably the last ones we had that we sold to Ben, probably won't be restocking them again." Thanks...
A lead from Kris from the forum... try Radial Engines in OK. He said he was there a few weeks ago and could have sworn he saw a box of them on the counter. When I tracked down the blue print and posted in that thread he KNOWS that those were the rubber bushing he saw. Said that I had emailed them a few days ago... and waiting on a reply.
December 27-28, 2016 JACKPOT !!!...
Back and forth with Eric from Radial Engines in OK.
Turns out that the box that they had were for the UC-78 Jake mount... but different than the drawings from the micro film, pdf drawings of the UC-78. Somewhere along the lines it changed... maybe there is an update in the file and I just didn't look past the initial find.
Anyways, I asked Eric if he could confirm with Caleb, and also send me over a photo and the dims. I received both today, the 28th of December. Waiting to hear the final costs on them.
