Tail work

I'm back ... slowly.

I did some work on the rear tip of the vertical tail, namely on the elevator control linkage area. I added the PVC guides between the rear 1/4 x 0.035" tubes. Instead of just making a slurry of epoxy, I manufacturer a couple foam stand-offs to tie the guide tubes to the structural member. I 3M'd some 1" wide fiberglass tape around the foam, PVC, and aluminum tube, then I added some thickened epoxy to fillet the sharp intersection of the 1/4" tubes, then I 3M'd another glass wrap around the whole thing, on the outside of the fillet. I mashed epoxy into the fibers and thoroughly wet out enough to practically see through the fiberglass tape. A simple layer of peel-ply and clamps to ensure the fabric fit down in the fillets nicely, let cure overnight, and admire the handiwork. I'd say these aren't going ANYWHERE without some severe hammering. I remembered to add some shims/spacers inside the guide tubes while I was doing this bonding, so both guides are parallel and in good alignment. It's super smooth motion. Yes I couldn't resist putting the horizontal stab back on and seeing how the elevator stick felt ... 'bout the same as before.

While I had epoxy on the brain, I finished off the rudder ribs. I did two at once, pushing epoxy through the fibers of the 3M'd fiberglass tape, then using a wrap of peel-ply to get a nice finish. In the morning, I pulled off the peel-ply and knocked down the edges with an 80 grit sanding block. Two evenings' work, and the rudder is as good as done!

Oh I just checked the pictures of the elevator guides above. I guess I took the photo between layers. You can see the flox fillets around the 1/4" tube before putting the final wrap over them. Take my word for it, the next wrap actually went on rather well (3M is great stuff).

William-T-Pique through the Panama Canal!

Slightly off topic, but I very much enjoyed reading Alan's boat-building blog for both his previous projects. Currently, he is sailing around the world and just made the trek through the Panama Canal! The crew is keeping a wonderful news site of their progress with an educational spin: Eye of the World/

I took screenshot videos of the boat passing under the Centennial Bridge and moving through the first Miraflores lock.





Awesome job Alan!

I'd really like to hear from anyone reading this ... I opened up the comments to anyone with or without signing in to whatever account thing this site has. Just a few words of "hello" or "having fun reading" or even "I have a hanger and towplane and a trailer you're welcome to use." I'm just curious who all is reading.

So I caught up on some other pressing stuff around the house & office, so I decided to do a little assembly work this morning. Notably, I installed the elevator control line pulleys sometime earlier this week while it was raining.

Now, I also made the control linkage part to connect the sliding tube to the elevator itself. Well, um, there is no elevator per-se. I haven't yet bent the 3/8" tubes to make up the trailing edge for the elevator. Despite this, the elevator leading edge is done and hinged. So it's a little anti-climactic. But now I have another moving part!

The bottom of the control linkage shows off more of the temporary work back here. The marine pulleys from Harken are rather smooth and very nice actually. They'll do much better with larger line. The control tube guides will also do much better when they're bonded to the structure with epoxy and cabosil. The foam anti-twist supports will be nicer too without the wrap of electrical tape, so look out for that to happen when I mix up some big batch for doing ribs in the next month.

Speaking of ribs, I did a little work during the last snow storm to attach the horizontal stabilizer to the vertical tail, necessitating some filing of aluminum and using the die set from Harbor Freight.

That's all for now!

Harbor Freight is my friend

I have heard the name Harbor Freight before, but hadn't ever really looked into them. With the snow finally plowed enough to get out, venturing to Harbor Freight was on the list! Their prices on tools I have bought before were generally half what I paid ... meaning a half-hour drive to the store is worth the savings. I bought several random things, including a tap & die set to make the quick-pins for Goat. I already modified the horizontal stabilizer AN3-30A bolt to accept two lock-nuts (low profile ones) and trimmed it to 1-1/8" long. Now my previously jury-rigged bolt actually stays in by itself! I was thinking hard about getting a drill press for making all those sheet metal parts a bit easier, eventually deciding against it since I'm almost done making those kinds of parts, heh.

In other news, I started a jig to re-bend the keel tube. I have to find some fine-grained sand to stuff the tube before I try to bend it this time. I have been told that will dramatically help reduce the kinking, along with a good jig of course.

No pictures this time.

I did give a go at sleeping inside that igloo by the way. Unfortunately, I didn't put in a secondary vent hole, relying simply on the main entrance for ventilation. After about two hours outside, I woke up extremely light-headed and abandoned it... I was quite warm, I think my CO2 was just not escaping enough without that vent. DOH.

An igloo?

Goat is waiting in line behind some RC projects right now ... and then it snowed ~20" today, so we made an igloo in the front yard. Oh yeah :-)

It's big enough inside that I can crouch on my feet and we can get two adults inside. I'm seriously debating sleeping inside just to be EXTREME! Actually, if I kept dry, I'm sure it would be fairly comfortable inside. While digging it out, you could see steam leaving the entrance from body heat melting the snow. Despite being soaking wet from working several hours on it, the temperature change (or at least getting rid of wind chill) is noticeable. Ah, the insulating power of water!

If I had to do it again, I would buy a snow shovel first.

A little snowy work

Finally I beat a stomach bug ... four inches of snow meant staying inside and getting a little work done on Goat.

These are the aft control line guides from G4T14. I have yet to put in the 1/4" spacers, instead simply using a washer to give just enough space for the temporary control line. I think they look pretty slick :-)

I also worked a tad on the rudder, evening up the control throw stops so now the rudder pedals feel more balanced. I'm a bit taken back at the short stroke of the pedal for full ~30deg of rudder deflection. An easy fix will be to lengthen the control arm on the rudder to suit. What should a "normal" stroke for the pedal be (let's say measured at my toes)?

So what's next?
* 8' of 1/4" x 0.035" tubing for the vertical tail internal struts
* peel ply for horizontal stabilizer rib LE and TE wraps for securing the ribs
* redo the bolt hole in the upper vertical tail tube (one hole is out of line with the other, hmmm)
* elevator linkage for inside the vertical tail
* finally do the two cabane replacement tubes
* measure the nose keel bend, make a jig, and bend a new keel without kinks
* 1-1/8" x 0.058" x 20" and 1" x 0.035" x 20" to redo the main structural member from G4N1
(ouch) ... the holes for the cabane pins are not orthogonal as one expects from View D G4N2.

Marine hardware: check

I placed an order with Berkley Point for some hardware ... in fact for pretty much all the marine hardware. A good price break on 25 quick-links made that an easy choice and saved hundreds compared to West Marine. The steel rings are pretty cool and the snap hooks are quite pretty. I dropped in six quick links in the nose section alone. Next for some more cleanup of the nose section, including a new keel and a new structural carry-through since the last one actually wasn't drilled orthogonal as the G4N1 drawing suggests.