Summer cabane

Time has come for another post. Life is changing ... a semester away from moving, a year away from graduating (yet again), a full 20 days until getting married. But Goat still progresses at its own pace.

Just this week, I received an order for a red Nelson Booster seat. It is a tad smaller than I anticipated, so the fit isn't quite exactly right, but the idea is there. I can always make a custom one that fits later when I care, heh. I laced the seat bottom and back with 3mm utility cord from REI. It's in the climbing isles and boasts 400lb strength, so I figure it should hold my butt up just fine. I painstakingly cut and tied each side with one tube removed such that when I pushed it back into place and dropped the bolt in, all the lines are tight. That sucked. The seat back was easier because I could slide the completed web down until it was snug, but getting the spacing right took several tries. I still have yet to cement the loops in place using some ShoeGoo. The seat itself will eventually be laced onto the cord instead of using a temporary loop around the seat back. I must say, it's pretty comfortable. It's no Tempurpedic, but works for me :-)

Also I have been working on getting the cabanes installed. This meant making the temporary center section pieces include ribs connecting the leading and trailing edges. Quite simply, I could not have purchased enough washers. There is a lot of spacing distance to cover to center the ribs, but whatever, washers are cheap. Next time I'll get 2000 instead of just 200. That should cover me :-)

Anyhow, I put the new long $7 ea. AN-42B eye bolts through the spar LE and TE to make the attachment point to the cabanes. A temporary short bolt and then a few pieces of 4-40 steel rod snaked through the test holes and now the cabanes are up by themselves! The nose tube goes up and supports the front of the cabanes just as nicely as can be. I even spent this morning on the forward pieces of the cabanes, so my head actually fits up inside closed structure (okay, I'm short so not actually inside, but it's nearby). This now is the configuration that it will be for flight. Everything else goes behind me (tail, aft fuse, wings). The wings have cables that tie into the tip of the nose, so I suppose those are ahead of me, but that's splitting hairs. The seating arrangement now is fairly close to the flight configuration.

I also bought a new nose section keel piece. This will replace the one with several kinks in the upper radius. I talked with an A&P guy who suggested filling the tube with sand and using a forming jig (which I can make from plywood). I'm hoping this new part will dress up the nose to look a little more professional. I also purchased a length of 3/4" OD tubing to replace a yet-undecided pair of truss members. Nobody likes the crimped 6061-T6, but if I can figure out which crimp everyone hates and make that look reasonable, perhaps they'll stop complaining.

I also need to figure out where to buy plastic tube end inserts like you might find in lawn furniture. You know what I'm talking about, a little plastic black cap that slides into a tube and dresses up the end to prevent snags on the thin wall and make it look solid. Where can I buy 3/4" and 1" ones of those?

Oh I guess I should also mention that I bought a handful of AN-14A bolts that fit better in the cabanes to get rid of the super long ones. Between making these updates and switching out the low-profile nuts for regular ones, the cabanes are looking rather dressed up.

What's next?

I still have some finishing-out work for the cabanes and replacements on the nose, so that's the immediate plan. After that, I'll be back on campus close to the tail sections again. I'll likely work on the ribs for the rudder and the horizontal stab. Figuring out and finishing those out will be a good accomplishment and set me up for the ailerons/flaps later down the road. I'll also take the sheet stock and start cutting out parts for the wing. I don't have all that many little parts to do, so I fear this will go fast enough I'll want to buy tubes again. My next tubing order I want to be the wing spars and tail tubes. This is all that's left for an easy next-step. I take that back, I guess the vertical tail (aka aft fuselage) is only an 8-ft tube, so UPS won't destroy me too badly. That settles it, I'll finish up the tail feathers then order the aft fuselage tubes. That will keep me busy for a while. I can even go so far as doing the elevator and rudder control rigging after attaching to the fuselage. That will be awesome. Yay for something to look forward to!

Semi-Update

Nothing really has happened since the last post except for a move and two trips to move everything to DC. I suppose I have cut out a few more parts, such as the four trailing edge joining pieces and some other miscellaneous pieces. I joined the trailing edge root pieces too and started on the right cabane. I guess I have done a bit. No pictures this post because it's mostly just busy-work to prep for more fun assembly later.

I think the plan of attack is to tackle the last order that includes some hardware to finish off the cabane attachment (AN42B-26A in particular), a few more pieces of 3/4 x 0.035" tubing to serve as ribs and finish off the cabanes, and perhaps even a seat :-)

I don't know what I'll work on after this order is finished being installed because the more I look, the more it looks like the wings or tail section is next, which means about a $500 order and a trip to pick up the material so I don't get eaten for shipping. I figure I'll get all the remaining aluminum at the same time so I don't have to pay for any more shipping, which means I'll be getting the tubes for the tail section as well as a few pieces for things like ribs and wing tips. I wouldn't be surprised to double the price of the order. So much for buying into this piecemeal.

On the other hand, I still have not finished making the rudder or horizontal tail ribs, which I already have all the material for. The composite fabrication I haven't figured out as well as the metalworking (which is not arguably 100% what it should be). As an alternate, I could work on fleshing out the nose section with some part replacement and fleshing out things like pullies. This probably makes more sense to do all at once though. Hm.

Well, maybe I'll have another post this summer with an answer and some actual pictures of some more progress.

Cabanes and a wing section?

I know this is a bad picture, but here are the pieces for the cabanes laid out on the floor. They are a lot bigger than I thought they would be! I don't think I realized the scale of this project, heh!

I should note that in putting these together with the mass of brackets that I have found two more parts that are mis-dimensioned. The top triangle 3/4" OD tube should be 20-7/8" instead of 20-3/4" and the front one I have not measured yet because my remaining tube is too short to fit. Dang. Also, the cabane channel on G4W10 is too narrow; it should be 1-1/4" channel to fit around the 1" OD rear cabane tube.

I also worked on the wing! Well, I'm making a fake center section that will allow me to put the cabanes on the nose section. This shows just 6" little pieces of the spar tubes that represent the whole wing. I likely can also add a rib down just a few inches to make these sections more stable and get the feel of how they go together.

You can see the mass of brackets that are going into these pieces. So far, running on 10 pieces of bracket and still have another 6 flat ones to go. I am out of 3/4" OD tube to make the root rib, so it'll be a while before this really goes on the nose/cabanes. But, it's cool to hold these in my hand and realize how sturdy they are and get a feel of the mass of the root joint. Whew!

Order up!

It's almost sad how little material you get for an order ... I guess I did get several pounds of bolts this go-around, different from before.

This material is enough to finish off the cabanes, make the control stick assembly, and to make a test center-section so I can mount the cabanes and down-tube. After this, I'll be able to sit in my cockpit, wiggle the stick & pedals, and be fully enclosed like the final product will be!

I guess I didn't really pick up more material to clean up the nose section yet. I guess I'll get to that next order, sometime over the summer.

I started out by finishing up some pieces needed for the control stick assembly. This is where the belt sander really turned out to be useful. Such a long cut from sheet left a rough edge that would have taken an hour to file out by hand. Three minutes on the belt sander and the rough edge was super flat and no nicks were to be seen!

I haven't drilled these yet because I'm going to match-drill a bunch of these holes. The end pieces (triangular ones) will get bolted into the first hole and then I'll drill through the other hole to ensure I get a good fit. This also makes sure the holes are parallel between the two sides.

The plans show the final arrangement of the control stick assembly.

I should note, I had to redo two parts from the next page of the plans due to mis-dimensioning. They should be made from 1-1/8" x 1-1/8" angle, not 1-1/8" x 1".

The control stick as it sits in my living room. I still need to put on the aileron connection pieces and bend the (not shown) front mounting piece into a U. That comes when I have time. Oh, you can see here to the lower left the two brackets I had to redo. Bugger parts...

Out!

Yet more brackets, foam, carbon, and aluminum composites

I spent some time this weekend working on Goat. I split about 50/50 working on foam versus cutting more brackets.

I have quite a large pile growing and it's getting time for some more fun assembly! Several, if you notice, are multiples up to 4 of any individual part. For the cabanes in particular, I need one bracket each side and then a duplicate pair for the other cabane. Several of these parts also need to be match drilled to align with each other, so some of these are not yet drilled. Fortunately, only a pair of each need to be match drilled, so it's not like I have to drill through four and have them all agree!

Next I moved to the rudder to do some foam and carbon work. I typically dislike this more than the metal work which I like less than wood work. However, I took my time and vacuumed several times and it was much more enjoyable than normal.

First, let me say I am not pleased with my first rib installation job. I have determined I will pull this one off and replace it in the future. I thought it more important this go around to get a rib right before I destroyed my old one. One step forward before one step backward.

I already had the fiberglass collars wrapped around the leading and trailing edges from months ago when I did the original rib. These I sanded a bit to get rid of sharp edges (ouch, pointy!) and to create a better surface for bonding the second layer of glass. One rib was already cut, so I simply tack-glued that on with some quicker setting epoxy. This helped keep it from moving around on me. I used a straight-edge and a razor saw to put a slice down the middle of the rib. Then I took a scrap piece of carbon and ensured the hole was large enough for the rib carbon to fully seat in the foam. After trimming a new piece of carbon to length, I glued it in the slot and double checked to keep the top surface flush. Before I add the wrap, I will install the other two ribs.

I did a little metal work on the horizontal tail too. I finally had a piece of scrap 3/4" x 0.035" tubing long enough for the elevator. I squared it up and drilled holes for the bolt and rivets.

I think doing rivets is fun, so it was exciting to have six to do all at once! Maybe my next plane should include more rivets. Okay, I admit that pop rivets aren't the most structural, so maybe I would say differently if I had to use real rivets.

I also watched an EAA Homebuilders video on the proper technique for installing cotter pins in castle nuts. The elevator hinge line eventually gets this locking feature, so I thought it would be nice to brush up on (who am I kidding, learn) the proper techniques.

While I had the foam out and my scrap 3/4" tubing handy, I started the rudder pedals. They are quite simple, just two tubes and foam in the middle. They will receive a wrap of 6oz fiberglass cloth to seal the foam and give it more rigidity. Whereas they look rather unfinished now, once the fiberglass goes on, they should look and feel much more rigid.

You might be able to see that I roughed up the aluminum in order to bond the foam on. This simple step is really important for getting a good bond. Imagine that the sandpaper is making several miniature scratches in the surface that the glue can creep down into and get a grip. You can bond things to glass this way even! Don't try it though, it's a good way to ruin a window...

Brackets and that's about it

Progress is slow now that weather is better and I have school/work to do. I still have about 8 linear feet of sheet stock to cut, so expect more of this kind of update.

Just cutting parts ... mostly doing ones for the cabane area because I hope to do the cabanes next as a set. I still have a lot to touch up on the fuselage, don't get me wrong. But if I'm going to order material, I might as well be prepped for two duties at once and only have to pay once for shipping.

For the fuselage, I'm thinking of re-doing the lower tube with more effort on getting a bend with no kinks. Also on the list is to redo a few of the truss members that the holes are wallowed out or slightly off center. Most of the structure beneath the pilot looks to be non-structural in the sense that they do not carry flight loads. There are a few obvious exceptions, and that's why those pieces receive more attention. At any rate, will be fun to clean up some of the messier areas and take stuff back apart.

Snowy day again, this time for real!

Apparently I like snow :-)

We got a solid 3" with areas of +4" this morning and it's still coming down. I really like working on snowy days because it is so quiet outside and peaceful to just watch the snow coming down when arms or eyes need a break.

Actually, I haven't done a whole lot of work on Goat in a bit. Occasionally, I'll sit down and knock out a part or two. I have all this sheet stock for making brackets, so there won't be much visual progress except for a growing pile of brackets. As it stands, I have a small mountain already and still over 9 linear feet to cut!

Here is the growing collection. Most of these belong to the cabanes, but the larger ones are for the wing root area and I have a couple more roughed that didn't make it into the photo.

One last hoorah for snow!