|
Well it's been a while since my last update again - Classes are starting to pick up and demand more of my time, so I haven't spent quite as much time building as I'd like, and since building necessarily comes before website updates, I've been focusing on the building when I can. So with that said, I have been making at least SOME progress on it lately. As the picture shows below the fuselage's main structure is fully welded, the gear is built and fit in place, and I have the seat built as well. The seat I decided to buck rivet with AN470-4 rivets I had on hand from the Mustang II project as I figured it would save me a small bit of weight compared to the Cherry N pull rivets. Not shown in this picture is the vertical fin and horizontal stabilizers which I have built up and held together with clecos. I've used them to weld in the mounts on the tail of the fuselage. I need to order some tubing so I can fabricate the hinges so I can get the rudder and elevator in place on it, which will then let me weld mounting tabs for the flying wires on the tail and fairleads for the rudder cables. It's amazing how fast the overall fuselage goes together, but it's the little details that take a ton of time and make you feel like you're moving at a snail's pace. I'm seeing where they came up with the term "90% done and 90% to go!".
|
|
|
You can pretty well gaurantee that at some point during your project, you'll have to either make one or more parts that would be difficult to draw out, or several of the same part that would take a while to draw out repeatedly. This is where CAD software can be handy. Now I admit that up front there will be a learning curve to get comfortable with the CAD software, but I think the benefits outweigh the up-front learning curve. Plus it's a skill you can learn that you can use in other projects. Standard 2D cad is all you need to get started - and I'll give you a link to a great software that's FREE! SolidEdge 2D Free However any CAD program that lets you draw the shapes, relations and accurately dimension them will do just fine. Note that I'm using a 3D modeling package in this article.
Step 1: Draw your part in the CAD software. Note that with the 3D cad packages you can rotate the part to see it from all angles.
Step 2: Create/print your 2D CAD drawing.
Step 3: Glue the CAD templates onto your workpiece. For this I use a 3M brand aerosol contact adhesive.
Step 4: Cut/Drill/Bend as the part requires. If you have multiple identical parts to finish, you can fasten them together for final finish. The end product here is 4 completely identical parts. Simply peel off the template and wash off the adhesive with acetone or laquer thinner.
|
|
|
Legal Eagle Fuselage tack welded |
|
Time for another progress update! I took a winterim chemistry class so I was a bit busy and hadn't updated for a bit as I didn't get as much done on the weekends as I'd originally hoped. But with the winterim class over I was able to again commit to some building time and finished tack welding the fuselage structure up. Next up is final welding on the entire structure followed by the seat tubes. After that it'll be time to get it on the gear and get the tail group on. So since there's not much excitement in posting pictures of welded up joints, it might be a little bit before I get some noticeable progress posted up here on it. Perhaps the next picture will be of it sitting on it's own gear, or of it with the tail group mounted on it.
Oh, and I have sat in it and made the obligatory airplane noises. :)
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 Next > End >>
|
| Results 1 - 4 of 11 |