NACA Vents installed (May 29, 2002)
This is the Van's NACA vent installed at the left forward fuse sidewall.
I'll spray the plastic vent insert using high gloss metallic paint
This is the inside view. I made a frame from 0.032" 6061-T6. The plastic vent is sandwiched between frame and sidewall skin. The positioning is very similar to David Koelzer's #36. The larger two holes at the right side row are holding the rudder attach angle. The assembly will be riveted in using 1/8" solid flush rivets. The sideskin is dimpled, the plastic vent is countersunk.
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Testing new Polish (May 26, 2002)
I already mentioned that Nuvite Inc. contacted me and proposed a better polish formulation (F9) for the first polish of 6061-T6. I asked them for a sample and -surprise- a few days later I received two small tins of the F9 stuff.
The sample was free, Nuvite even prepaid shipment to Germany. I tested
the new F9 on an 1 sqft at the right forward fuselage sideskin. For comparison
I polished an area equal in size using the 'F7' grade. The F9 took about
9 minutes until I could face my mirror image without 'fogging'. Using the
F7 grade it took about 14 min until I received a similar result. However
the F9 needs some final polish, which however should not take much time.
So my order will be plaved for another lb of F9 tomorrow.
>>> Recommendation
Before you start final-drilling the longerons of the forward sideskin check that they fit the attach points at the rear fuse sideskins!
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Fitted the last Part at the Right Forward Fusealge Sidewall today (May 18, 2002)
Assembly of the forward fuse sidewall was pretty straightforward. Almost all parts were already fabricated and assembly was like playing with a child's metal construction kit. Some observations:
- The motor mount angles have a 1/8" radis where the mount fits inside of the longeron 'L' extrusion. This rdius is too small (or in other words the 'L' extrusion have a lrger radius than 1/8"). I had to correct this and now touch-up the dameged priming
- Some other gussets are located very far inside of the 'L' extriusions. So these gussets also require a radius (not shown at the plans)
- Several holes are located too close to the inside radius of the 'L' extrusion. Particularily for the bolts the washers will interfer with redius and will require some grinding (not mentioned at the plans)
When I drilled a hole far from perpendicular form the horizontal (don't know why I always discover such mishaps when it's too late...) I invented this aiming aid.
I spend now 15 hrs now for assembling the right sidewall. Next steps
are: disasembly, deburring, polishing the outside skin, priming the inside,
re-assembly.
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Dimpling Difficult to reach Locations (May 18, 2002)
I've found the solution for dimpling these critical/tight corners
. I purchased an M3 threaded steel rod at the hobby store. The 3mm rod
fits nicely my hand rivet puller. The procedure is now:
The hand operated puller I like more than the pneumatic one for this delicate job. Every half a dozen of pulls the threaded rod will break, then I just cut another piece from the stock. Also the nuts will wear out fast, however this is cheap hardware stuff anyhow.
This is a very tight spot (rudder rib) to dimple. I
use needle pliars for mounting the nuts here.
... and next time a totally different subject (assembly of the forward fuselage). See ya.
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More Dimpling Tales (May 16, 2002)
Yesterday was the first warm, dry day after weeks. So I moved out in the garden and primed there about two hundred small parts. I have now 95% of all aluminum parts fabricated and about 80% of them are already primed. Hours spent so far: 1382 @ 751 calendar days. Average hours per working day: 3.4.
My second obsession besides priming is dimpling.
This is one of the Sonex' sweetest parts (rudder horn assembly). Because I like to eliminate the least bit of parasite drag I dimpled the rudder bottom rib (left side) for flush rivets. However it was completely impossible to dimple the leftmost three holes with my pliars (impossibe to squeeze the jaws between the rib's flanges. So I had to put this on hold until my new 100 deg pulled dimpler arrived from the US.
This pic shows the situation. The red circle shows where the head of the 'nail' is supposed to be in order to pull the two dies together. Impossible to insert the nail: the top rib-flange is in the way and I'm currently running out of ideas how to tackle this (self-induced) problem (...yes, Jeremy/Tony I'll never again deviate from the holy plans...). Anyone out there in cyberspace with constructive ideas?
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The Secrets of the pulled Dimpler revealed (May 06, 2002)
Today I received another parcel from Wicks Aircraft Supplies. It contained the stainless steel hingepings and four bolts which were delivered wrongly before (AN 4-10 (drilled) bolts instead of AN-10A (undrilled) ones, cad-plated steel hingepins instead of SS pins).
>>> Recommendation
I would recommend everyone buying the Wick's Sonex hardware kits to order SS hingepins instead of the cad-plated steel ones. The very thin cad coating will be rubbed off in a very short period of time and then the unprotected steel is exposed to dew and rain.
What I also ordered was a pulled 100 degrees dimpler, because the 120 degrees one which I purchased with the previous order is completely useless.
Wrong Wold
The 100 degrees dimpler works ~perfect~ with the AD-4, 100 degrees solid flush rivets and work as well with the 120 degrees blind rivets. Confusing? - Yes it is indeed. However if you take a closer look at the picture below i's obvious why the so-called 120 degrees dimpler could never ever make a suitable dimple. You can see that the 'negative cone' turned into the left top matrice is ~way~ too large in
diameter. The positive cone (bottom
left) is just right, but will never work with the counterpart. The dimples
this set produce is so shallow that they're barely unusable. The right set
(this is the 100 degrees one) is just fine, negative and positive cone fit
together properly. I cannot imagine what the manufacturer of the dies at
left side was thinking about when he made this piece of crap (and why Wick's
still sell them)
120 degrees set (left) 100 degrees set (right)
>>> another Recommendation
The 'good' tool (right side) uses a 2.9mm diameter nail for pulling the dies together. If you use the tool for dimpling final-drilled 1/8" [3.2mm] holes then the hole will become about 0.2mm too large. The rivet will fall in a sloppy hole - not good. For a perfect hole drill the 2.4mm pilot holes to 3mm. Then dimple. The final hole will be a tight fit for the rivet now. If too tight, the hole may be drilled with a #30 to final size.