While I was editing my last post I received a call from Barbara at Van’s Aircraft. She had great news that my wings and all their glory are crated and in a FedEx truck due for arrival at my home on Monday Sept. 16th!!! I can’t wait to start! Now for a little planning and organizing the Hangar for that arrival!
Category Archives: The Hangar
New Toy (While Waiting for the Wings)
I had several ideas of vinyl sticker that I wanted to put on my truck to show that I’m an RV-8 guy. I couldn’t find one online that I liked so I researched how to make one. What I came up with was buying a Silhoutte Cameo cutter. This device looks like a regular computer printer but has a blade instead if ink.
This cutter will cut anything from vinyl to fabric and paper. So I found a online store that had a RV-8 sticker that I wanted to start with (I bought a set from them at $15 so I could use the design just for me rather than just copying them, I think that’s the right thing to do!). The software that comes with the cutter is pretty awesome and allows for a lot to be done. So I bout some good outdoor vinyl from H&H Sign online store in silver to match my truck. After playing around this is the final product, a little bigger than the ones I bought and has my reserved tail number cut out too!
So what else could I do, well I have made templates of possible avionics that I want and cut them from black card stock so that I can mix and match them on a full size layout of the instrument panel.
Then I learned that they also do print and cut. What you do is design within their software and print on a regular printer. Then you bring it back to their cutter and based on some registration marks it printed it cuts it out perfectly!
I made a life size cutout of the panel out of foam board and painted it a satin gray that I’m contemplating for a final color. Now I have a board and avionics outlines to try different ideas.
I have to tell you I’m a geek at heart and toys like this make me happy! I have created a few stickers and I’m working on designs for my RV-8 paint scheme. Here is the second that I made for my daughter Ellie as she is 8 and now in competitive gymnastics!
Here is one that I made for the girlfriend as her youngest is in his first year in the NAVY.
So now I’m playing around with making labels for my instrument panel and switches. I have found a few settings that make a nice label especially in such a small font. I will work on these and perfect it I hope. The vinyl I’m using is Oracal 651, and has a 5-8 year outdoor life span. This stuff sticks real well!
The one on the left is gloss and the right satin. More to come!
Wing Stands Finished
I finished up the wing stands today. I cleaned the steel with some Simple Green which made quick work of the oily residue that was on them. I then gave them three coats of Rustoleum’s pro grade spray paint.
After letting them dry for a day I assembled them to see how the leveling rod works.
A few small turns of one of the nuts and I can make the angle completely level.
And the shop is ready for the wings. Should be shipped this week! I’m ready!
Rib Flange Tool
I had some extra time this weekend to work on a tool I had read about on a fellow builders site. This tool is designed to straighten the flanges of a rib to a 90° angle. A little background for some of you non builder types. When Van’s presses ribs, the inner bones of the wings and tail, they create two surfaces. The web and the flanges, the web is the broad surface and the flanges are the bent wings that should be 90° from the web. In most cases the flanges are less than 90° due to some spring back. The flanges are the surface that gets riveted so you want it flat with the skin. If the flanges are not at a 90° angle they won’t lay flat. So on the empennage I only had a few ribs to deal with so I bent them by hand to the 90° angle. With the upcoming wings there are a lot of ribs to deal with. So many years ago some builders came up with this tool. I found this tool version on Jason Hess’s website and I just copied it minus the blue paint, I had white out for the stands and went with it! :-). This tool consists of a base plate, an anvil, a handle and two metal bars to connect the handle to the anvil.
The idea is to use the handle force against the anvil, which has an optimal 11° back cut in it, to over bend the flange to 111°. Then when you release the handle, the flange springs back to a perfect 90°. From what I have read this makes the terrible job of straightening all the ribs of the wings a fun job!
I tried it out on a scrap rib I had from an earlier error. It works slick! It will take a little getting used to the proper pressure to apply but it works well! Thanks to all the builders before me and to Jason Hess for a great website!
More Wing Stand Work
I got a few more hours in last night working on the wing stands. I welded some caps on the top of the stands.
I then worked on the layout in the hangar for the stands. I had several factors I was trying to give equal attention too. I wanted enough space between the one wing and the garage wall. I also wanted enough space between the wings so I had a comfortable work space. I also wanted enough work space in the rest of the garage to have the workbench out and space to work around it. What I came up with was 4′ or so from the garage wall to the first stand and 3′ between the stand posts. This gives me around 3’6″ of work space on all sides. I used my little rolling seat that I will do a lot of work on as a guide to see if I had a comfortable work space. I guess time will tell if I made a good decision.
Today I plan to fabricate the angle aluminum brackets that hold the wings along with the connecting points that hold the threaded rod that allows for adjustments. Once I have all the fabrication and drilling done I will clean off the steel (they have an oily substance on them from the cold rolled process) and paint them white. I will post photos of those and how the stands work in a later post.