2007 - Page 2

December 26th, 2007 4.0hrs - 62.5 hrs total. Santa brought me a band saw, a scroll saw, and a combo belt/disc sander! Spent about 2 hours re-arranging my "shop" area to accommodate the new tools - and putting them together. With the scroll saw I was able to cut the slots in the trim tab hinge plates. Trial fit is very good. Used saw and sander to clean up the trim tab parts. Spent some more time studying the plans. Tabs are built into elevator and cut loose after trailing edge laminates are done.

December 27th, 2007 3.0hrs - 65.5 hrs total. Started cutting the ribs apart into nose, enter and elevator sections. Discovered I needed to make an extra set of #3 elevator ribs for trim tab actuator anchor. Made those, and started sanding ribs that have been separated. Putting a small radius on the lightening holes, leaving other edges square to maximize glue contact areas. All #3 ribs separated and sanded. #2 separated and partially sanded.
December 28th, 2007 5.0hrs - 70.5 hrs total. Finished cutting the ribs apart. Finished sanding them all - sanding all those lightening holes by hand took forever! Laid out spars and marked the slot locations - still need to cut those out. Sanded the spars. Still need to cut out the ribs that go on the elevator tips and some filler ribs that go in the elevator - but those will have to wait till its partially assembled in the jig. Steve is unavailable for about a week, so I will go get the jig and lumber from him tomorrow so I can keep working. Will try to make the scarf joints once the rib slots are done.

December 29th 2007 6.0 hrs - 76.5 hrs total. Retrieved jig and lumber from Steve's shop. Was quite a task to get it into the "shop" in the basement. Had to remove part of a door frame to get it in. Cut all the slots in the spars. Sanded the spars and a couple of other pieces I had missed. Tried making a test scarf joint with the disc sander - not very successful. Only a couple of ribs to make and I'll have all the parts ready to start assembly.

December 30th, 2007 3.5 hrs - 80.0 hrs total. Prepared epoxy for first use. Experimented with different methods of making scarf joint and finally just did it by hand on the belt sander. The layers in the plywood make excellent depth and angle indicators as you sand through them. Made a scarf joint on the elevator spar, prepped and epoxied it together. Learned some lessons about gluing! When compressing the scarf joint with clamps, the pieces will want to spread apart and move. I now know to
clamp both pieces firmly in position before compressing the scarf joint! Learned a little about the glue too. Even though it was a very small batch, it still "cooked off" in the end and changed from a thin honey texture to very stiff tar texture in about two minutes.

December 31st, 2007 2.0 hrs - 82.0 hrs total. Picked up about 20 or so clamps today, also some mixing cups and a box of latex gloves to keep the epoxy off my hands. When I got home and unclamped one end of the elevator spar it moved about 1/4 inch! So there is now about 1/4 inch of reverse dihedral in the spar! After cleaning up the glue from the joint, flexing the spar in different ways, and consulting the plans, I think I can salvage the spar and correct the "bend" with the flanges and blocking that is yet to be installed in the elevator. Went ahead and made the scarf joint in the stab rear spar and glued it. With the elevator spar I only had 4 clamps. With the stab spar I had plenty of clamps and ended up using 12. In the photo above you can see part of the completed elevator spar laying in the bottom of the jig, the two halves of the stab front spar stacked on top of it, and the stab main spar clamped to the top.