November 20, 2005
I started on the rear spars today. This is a shot of one of the aileron reinforcement plates awaiting a hole for the bell crank push rod (I'm getting this tech talk).
I noticed a lot of builders using carpet on their work bench. I picked this purple beauty up for free from a carpet store right next door to my work.
My oversized drill press really showed it's stuff. I enjoyed running the manual in x and y at the same time. It is somewhat challenging but not that bad once you get the hang of it, like which way is clockwise. Linear moves are much easier than arcs. I still had to touch it up with the dremel.
Not too shabby.
I took this picture because I had to remove the countersink cage in order for the countersink to fit next to the angle. Making the countersink without the cage wasn't that bad.
I think Chad was getting tired of sitting in front of his 4 monitor, 2 video card, data screaming machine so he stopped by for some man work.
Wow, I almost didn't drill the holes for skin attachment. The wing directions are much more vague than the empennage directions. Fortunately I took a break and surfed the web and was able to spot it on Brad Oliver's site. By the way, I really like his site, it is clean and professional looking. I got the idea of adding the www.rv8driver.com to the pictures from his site. He is ahead of me but my goal is to get my bird flying before him, I figure if I race somebody, even if they don't know it, I will add motivation to my slacking tendencies.
This primer thing is really frustrating. I don't alum-a-prep, alodine, I figure that stuff is great but I don't think I will need it. This reminds me of when I built a half pipe, but that's another story. Long story short I was so eager to skate my half pipe that I didn't take the extra step to recess the screws. Well after time and weather the screws came out of the masonite, allowing the head to stick up above the surface. Well one day I was getting a quick session in without my knee pads and ended up with a few stitches in my knee. If I would learn from my mistakes, I would probably take the extra steps and go the Dan Checkoway route, however, I am afraid if I complicate things too much I will get discouraged and quit. So in the long run, I got the 20' wide 7' high 3 ply halfpipe built virtually all by myself and a nail gun at the age of 14 so despite the stitches, I consider it a success, I had tons of fun skateboarding on my halfpipe, along with all my un helping friends. Basically, I am more scared of not finishing this project than making it more than it needs to be. Anyway's I am a big proponent of the KISS method, which is evident within my priming procedure. I rough the surface with scotchbrite, clean with acetone, and prime. Well I went to prime this stuff and what do you know I pulled the trigger and cobwebs start to fly, I've seen this before but thought I was past it. I played with the pressure settings as well as the air/prime mixture and found no success. I added more catalyst reducer and that seemed to work. Most of the builders tend to use a different primer that actually leaves their components a different color. Mine always come out pretty clear dispute being green. It makes me wonder if I am using too much reducer or I am not applying enough.
Today was great, I made so big progress. It was pretty much a 12 hour day but with a NASCAR break only about 9 were productive. Hey it was the last race and I had to see if Jimmy Johnson was going to take it, turns out he crashed, I caught the last 100 laps, Tony Stewart was able to hang on.