I doubt it’s stocked anywhere with the folds in the right places. You’d likely need to buy a sheet, cut it, and bend it yourself. I usually buy my raw material from Metal Supermarkets. Depending on the location (here in the Baltimore area, for example), they could do the folds along the length when you buy the material. Then you would trim and form the smaller folds at the ends. At least, that’s how I would do it.
2 Likes
You need a sheetmetal brake. The purpose of the hobby is to buy tools!
3 Likes
Thanks for the ideas…
I have been doing more digging since the post of trying to rebuild the part. HomeBuiltHELP has the videos on scratch building airplanes as most probably have heard or watched.
https://youtu.be/rvKUrnd1bbE?si=gtXMoWjonQvtNrTE
At the end of this vid on YT they talk about plans that callout the “developed length” of parts for scratch bending. In the example I believe it is a Zenith horiz stab spar. Not yet sure how to reverse engineer that dimension of the part I want to build. Perhaps trial and error until the part matches. Fairly sure the bends are all 1/8” radius if that is the correct way to designate the bend. Seems like that is just about the smallest bend that 6160-T6 .032 can accommodate without cracking. There is a advisory circular with the bend specs for different aluminum alloys. The developed length includes the part side dimensions and the bends.
I have the intent now to get some flat stock of 6160-T6 and see what I can learn.
HomeBuiltHelp also as plans online for a metal break. I just put together a welding table so will look into those plans more for the metal break. A few guys have vid series detailing those plans. It is always fun to weld stuff.
The Cotton rule of tool acquisition lives on!
1 Like
Here is a link to an early Sonex plans builder’s homemade brake.
Ref.: Dave’s Sheet Metal Bending Brake.
Wes
2 Likes
Research ….
I did a “scratch build” search here at SonexPilots.org and have lots of posts to go through. Saw a Bryan Cotton post from back a fair bit that has as a rule of thumb that bend radius should be 4 times the metal thickness. For .032 that is pretty much 1/8” .
Would be interesting to find someone with scratch build plans on a Sonex B and see if there is a callout for the develop length on the rear spar of the horizontal stab. I have looked at build logs of Sonex B models and the tail design appears to be very similar to the High Wing tail.
More to learn!
2 Likes
As far as I know, there aren’t any scratch build plans for the B model - only for the legacy/A model. But the stabilizers are probably really close (if not identical) between the legacy and B-model. I believe the only thing they changed between the A and the B was forward of the tail cone box. In fact, there’s an A-to-B upgrade kit that (I believe) leaves the empenage alone.
1 Like
For Developed Length look at this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9fxo95D4Ik
1 Like