Blog

As I was thinking through my mistake last night with one of the aileron torque tubes, I realized that the first hole that I drilled was the undersized #30. I still had to drill a #12 to get it to the size for an AN3 bolt to fit through it. That just gave me enough room to still get it to the right angle and drill the holes I needed. I used clamps to hold everything still and I drilled the hole slowly so that it wouldn’t offset. It drilled just right and my angle only ended up 1/32 off of what it was supposed to be. I’m getting more accurate but still not bang on. I need to figure out what tools or techniques I need to use to make this more accurate. It seems to be when I start drilling it moves things off just a slight amount. I guess I need to find a way of getting a super accurate punch to start my hole off so the bit doesn’t wander. Either way, with it only being 1/32 off in angle I feel that is within tolerance. I installed both of them and got the tubes adjusted so that the system was in the proper location across the board. It allows the ailerons to move to their full extent in both directions which is excellent! I wrapped up that portion and I’ll take tomorrow off so I can rest. I want to get the wing tips glued up before I head off to the AEA Experimental Wiring class in Kansas City this coming Tuesday night. I’ll be in the class from Wednesday to Friday and I hope to get back home by 10PM on Friday.

At my EAA chapter meeting today I was loaned a rotisserie for the fuselage. My first step once I get started on the fuselage is to mate the empennage with the fuselage. Once that is done I can get it on the rotisserie so I can work on the plane more easily.

I got the Garmin servo mount installed in the right wing today as the first order of business. I got all of the tubes cut, drilled, primed, assembled, and installed as well. I got the inboard actuation tubes done for one of the sides but unfortunately I was not paying attention to the orientation of the bolts and it created too high of an angle between the two arms on one of them. I’ll have to get a new tube and redo that step. Not a major setback and I can get on my way with that. Oh and I also figured out how I want to secure the wires for the heated pitot. I zip tied them together to hold the loop and I’m going to get some adel clamps tomorrow that I can install in place of the zip tips and they will hold the wires close to the rib like the picture below.

I was pretty uncomfortable with what I saw from the work behind the pitot mount last night…

That there is a pretty mangled mount… So I decided to order a new one today which surprisingly is arriving tomorrow. This whole pitot system has been a nightmare but luckily I’ve got it worked out how I want to get this done so round two will be much better and more secure and properly riveted as well. Here is what the mount looked like when I removed it today…. Glad I changed my mind to remove it and redo….

That is horrendous… Some of the rivets are set properly but those top four were absolutely horrible. Some were folded over, one was mauled to pieces because the brace was too close to the hole and the other was way overset because it was too short of a rivet. Luckily I have it measured out and I know what I need to change this go around. The bracket needs to move up to cover those top two holes which will now go through the bracket for added support. I am going to drill another hole to mount the bracket to the rib as well so that way I have four rivets instead of two holding it to the main structure of the wing. I hope to get pictures of it tomorrow after installing it properly.

With that nightmare and embarrassment behind me, I went ahead and used my time to get the actuation section started. Pretty straight forward. Cutting these main tubes to length and installing the threaded ends into them. Takes time but pretty easy more or less.