Thanks Chris, I went through the plans and made sure everything was updated to the latest revision.
I’m still in the process of setting up my workspace, and came across something interesting: just how much aircraft spruce overcharges in some cases.
The 1/4-28 right angle drill attachment is:
As far as I can tell, they’re all the same tool.
I knew ACS wasn’t cheap, but a $240 markup is obscene
It looks like the ACS one has a bronze gearbox housing, the others may be plastic? They may all work fine.
True - I missed that.
Looks like the spruce product is from here:
But I’m still glad I looked around - I can buy 8 spares before I catch up to the one from spruce
They are both valid approaches. I think mine is from Aircraft Tool Supply, it has an aluminum head. I bought it about 37 years ago.
Travel’s kept me from doing as much as I’d like, but I’m making some incremental progress with the elevator root assembly - it is drilled out to #30 as of this morning.
I’ve used the granite countertops in my kitchen to check that the ribs are aligned, and it is pretty much as close as I think is possible - they’re maybe a 32nd off.
A few (potentially obvious things I’ve learned so far):
I’m not planning on priming everything, but want to do something for where I’ve drilled out the holes in the steel horn. Any recommendations on the best way to handle that?
At Schweizer Aircraft they used to dip rivets in paint and set them wet, for critical parts.
No prob. Glad someone’s getting something out of those videos.
Some black epoxy spray paint would work, but @Bryan_Cotton’s suggestion seems like a good one. I’ve never heard of such a thing, but it seems like it would work really well.
Yep, I think I’ll pick up some Rust-Oleum tomorrow - liquid for this use case and spray if needed elsewhere.
Elevator root assembly complete!
Not 100% certain which part I’ll go to next, but just excited that things are underway!
Also, this is where I’ll be building. There are some shelves behind the camera & I’ll likely end up putting more in the corner where the zenith rudder I built is standing.
The compressor I’m using is from Harbor Freight & we’ll see how it holds up, but it is INCREDIBLY quiet. It’s advertised as 66db and I can easily hold a conversation with someone while it is running.
Completed the vertical stabilizer forward spar, and everything fit together well. I did make a small mistake & put the bottom row of rivets in backwards (they’re the opposite of the others), but they drilled out easily.
The plans call out an approximate measurement from the edge of a clip to the edge of the spar:
Awesome job! The first of many rivets you will likely have to drill out.
I’m not a fan of approximate measurements.
My guess is that, since even laser cut parts are marginally different, you can allow that skin to slide one way or the other slightly to allow your overall assembly to be square. Just a guess though. The previous owner of my kit completed both stabs before I bought it and I haven’t really looked at the drawings for them (and they may be different from your Phoenix parts anyway).
No clue on that measurement. Just check it and move on. Probably will make sense some day later in the build, or maybe not.
Thanks, I’m certainly going to try to keep an eye out to see if it ever matters.
Thanks!
My primary concern at this point is that I’ll end up needing to order two -46 rivets to finish the kit up - I haven’t counted to figure out if they included any spares.
That never happens. But when it happened to me, I just ordered 200 more. They come in handy.
Haha. Yeah, what Bryan said.
If you plan to build a whole airplane, order lots of extra rivets and nylock nuts for the AN3 bolts - the temptation to reuse one can be strong if you don’t have a bunch of extras on the shelf and you’d be surprised how often you torque one down properly only to realize it has to be disassembled again later on.
