Nothing Goat related, but I had a chance to weld some 316 stainless steel brackets for a friend. The welds are grey (too much heat, not enough post-flow time), but they are stuck together. Hopefully this works out for his boat. Welding steel is so much easier than aluminum.
The fall weather was excellent and Saturday is a day for welding. This was a to clear an item from the to-do list. The upper rail joints looked like this one, only partially welded.
My best joint was probably this one, which looks almost respectable. The others aren't nearly as photogenic.
To-do's before the first flight are now:
Deferred:
The entirety of Goat has been mobile for the first time! The wing were strapped into the trailer with ratchet straps, and the struts and tail were strapped to the cross-beams with Velcro. The horizontal tail sat atop the upper wing and jammed in-between the wing and flap/ailerons.
The nose section was in the back of the sporty Prius-mobile.
With the tail section 'backwards' to the airflow, the rudder looked a bit wiggly at 45mph. I'm sure there will be a better placement for each of the components, determined from some trial-and-error.
The trailer rode reasonably well with the weight of the plywood and the stiffness of fully trussing the structure. I could probably get away with the current welding, but it would make me feel much better to weld everything completely.
The upper wing mounts could be about 1in higher and still leave ample room. The 1in square tube isn't quite large enough for the hitch pins to hold securely, so it would be nice to replace them with 1.25in square tube instead, and moving them up at the same time.
To-do's before the first flight are now:
Deferred:
