Back to airplane building in our new location
All moved into the Hangar and building our airplane!
Since the mid-October we have been in our new Hanger at Livermore Airport (KLVK). Our first order of business was to get everything stowed away and organized. Here is a picture of our hanger now that we are all moved in.
Our hanger is located on the extreme northeast corner of the airport. Right
now it is pretty noisy since there is a lot of construction going on with the
building of a new freeway on ramp for Hwy 84!
As you can see above, we have done a pretty good job of filling the hanger. It is hard to believe that most of that stuff was in my garage. The big work table is set up on the left side of the picture just behind the Harley. The hangar came with a nice loft which we are using to store our completed parts, foam blocks and molds.
Now we are working on making the wings. We completed the main wing spars earlier this year (see the July 31st entry below) and last month our friend and fellow EAA 663 member Jack Burke used his home made computer controlled mill to cut out a bunch of wooden ribs for making a wing section plug. Chuck designed the parts and sent the drawing files to Jack. He then used the drawings to program his mill. Here is a picture of the mill in action:
(need pic of mill IMG_4774)
Within a day or two of moving in we got to work gluing the plug's ribs and longerons together.
The plug is glued together and ready to have thin plywood skins added.
On October 22 we took the plywood skin for the top surface and soaked a 10" wide leading edge in water and ammonia to make it soft enough to bend around the leading edge. Other than a small mishap where the trough had a major leak, the technique worked out pretty well. Here is a picture of the plywood soaking in the water/ammonia trough.
Top plywood skin for the plug soaking overnight in water and ammonia to
make it bend better for the leading edge.
The next day we bonded the top plywood skin to the plug frame.
Straps holding wooden top skin in place while the epoxy sets.
We discovered afterward that we might have been better off if we had done the top skin in two stages. Trying to bend the leading edge and entire top surface was a handful, and there were some small bulges in the top surface. We ended up making two length-wise cuts in the top skin so that we could re glue the high spots.
Reworking the top skin. We turned the plug over and added 3/4 x 3/4 strips
of wood to the underside skin and clamped the skin down well.
By November 12th we had finished reworking and sanding the top skin and were now ready to glue on the bottom skin.
The plug is upside-down with the bottom skin glued into place.
The next step on the plug will be to add one or two layers of fiberglass. We will need to sand the skin to a very smooth surface so that we can make molds for the top and bottom wing skins.
In the meantime, we fabricated the seatback bulkhead this week. Here are a couple of pictures of that assembly.
Seatback bulkhead foam. Two areas have been machined down and will
be where openings will be cut out for access to the luggage area.
The front surface had been wetted with resin and micro and the first layer
of bi-directional fiberglass is being applied.
The second layer of bi-directional fiberglass has been applied and squeegeed.
Since the mid-October we have been in our new Hanger at Livermore Airport (KLVK). Our first order of business was to get everything stowed away and organized. Here is a picture of our hanger now that we are all moved in.
Our hanger is located on the extreme northeast corner of the airport. Right
now it is pretty noisy since there is a lot of construction going on with the
building of a new freeway on ramp for Hwy 84!
As you can see above, we have done a pretty good job of filling the hanger. It is hard to believe that most of that stuff was in my garage. The big work table is set up on the left side of the picture just behind the Harley. The hangar came with a nice loft which we are using to store our completed parts, foam blocks and molds.
Now we are working on making the wings. We completed the main wing spars earlier this year (see the July 31st entry below) and last month our friend and fellow EAA 663 member Jack Burke used his home made computer controlled mill to cut out a bunch of wooden ribs for making a wing section plug. Chuck designed the parts and sent the drawing files to Jack. He then used the drawings to program his mill. Here is a picture of the mill in action:
(need pic of mill IMG_4774)
Within a day or two of moving in we got to work gluing the plug's ribs and longerons together.
The plug is glued together and ready to have thin plywood skins added.
On October 22 we took the plywood skin for the top surface and soaked a 10" wide leading edge in water and ammonia to make it soft enough to bend around the leading edge. Other than a small mishap where the trough had a major leak, the technique worked out pretty well. Here is a picture of the plywood soaking in the water/ammonia trough.
Top plywood skin for the plug soaking overnight in water and ammonia to
make it bend better for the leading edge.
The next day we bonded the top plywood skin to the plug frame.
Straps holding wooden top skin in place while the epoxy sets.
We discovered afterward that we might have been better off if we had done the top skin in two stages. Trying to bend the leading edge and entire top surface was a handful, and there were some small bulges in the top surface. We ended up making two length-wise cuts in the top skin so that we could re glue the high spots.
Reworking the top skin. We turned the plug over and added 3/4 x 3/4 strips
of wood to the underside skin and clamped the skin down well.
By November 12th we had finished reworking and sanding the top skin and were now ready to glue on the bottom skin.
The plug is upside-down with the bottom skin glued into place.
The next step on the plug will be to add one or two layers of fiberglass. We will need to sand the skin to a very smooth surface so that we can make molds for the top and bottom wing skins.
In the meantime, we fabricated the seatback bulkhead this week. Here are a couple of pictures of that assembly.
Seatback bulkhead foam. Two areas have been machined down and will
be where openings will be cut out for access to the luggage area.
The front surface had been wetted with resin and micro and the first layer
of bi-directional fiberglass is being applied.
The second layer of bi-directional fiberglass has been applied and squeegeed.
Wow! Congrats on getting your hangar! Are you building your plane from scratch? That's a really big project. How long will it take you? Please let us know how it goes!
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