Freight damage repairs week.

It was a good week again. I was greeted by this upon my return home on Monday morning.

As it happened it was all the parts Sonex had sent me for the repairs via Air freight. I basically just had to install a few gussets and ally angle stiffeners with the new firewall. It was a straight forward skirmish and came out just like this.... Sweet..

I fitted the rudder pedals during the week also. This however , I hate to say it, was made really easy whist the firewall was out. It gave plenty of access to the area and the job was simple.

I started riveting the horizontal stabilizer towards the end of the week. I did have quite a drama however with the rivets not snapping off correctly.  It seems most were snapping proud of the rivet dome, which was really uncool, I thought. Using the hand riveter, however, produced a perfectly fitted rivet. No way I was going to do that 400 times though.

I tried all different settings on the air riveter and new jaws as well to no avail. In the end I was googling the issue and as it happens on the Sonex builders web site someone mentioned the air pressure and noted that if it was too high this could be the issue. So down to Bunnings for a regulator and walah!  Problem solved. The only issue now was the 100 or so rivets that had shafts sticking out. So anyway at Bunnings I also bought a Dremel with a  simple router attachment and went to work. As I always like a happy ending this was how the story turned out too. The rivets ground down flush really easily and look very neat.

I had a bit of a look around mounting the engine mount, so I can get this thing on the landing gear. I had to shape the lower engine mount a little to give access for the landing legs but it wasn't too much of a deal. I just had to be careful not to take away too much metal from the bracket, just enough to clear the gear leg tubes. It's held on by clamps at the moment until I can be sure all is good.

Hopefully next week will be just as productive. I think I still have some missing parts from the kit so during the week at work I will email Sonex and ask them about it.

Another week at the office

Well Monday, and that means work, is approaching fast. I've had quite a good week on reflection. I've managed to make a fair portion of the horizontal tail and elevators.

 The elevator horn bracket is all drilled and riveted,including the rivnut plate.

Managed to cut out the skins for the elevators.

A temp mock up of the assembly before I start drilling heaps of holes to make sure it all lines up. Looks good so far but had to call it a day. 

I guess it's probably not a huge amount to achieve for a week off but we have had visitors for the last few days and also today was Father's day so a few Dad things were done too. 

Friday was a good day for flying... and as someone else called it "Formation Friday", a few of the locals departed Geraldton for Jurien Bay. We met another bloke from Perth to make it a four ship formation prac day. I was still humming and harring about going as I hadn't made any commitment but on the morning when they were about to go I hightailed it to the airport as I would have been absolutely spewing if I had missed out on a day like this to stay home and drill and rivet a few holes. 

 We had a couple of Airforce trainer PC-9's drop in for some circuits and short field stuff as well during the morning... They didn't stop for a chat though.

It was a prefect day weather wise for it and a heap of fun was had by all. I'm just so keen to get my Sonex going too so that I can be the 5th party in this formation team. My current plane is just way too slow. I managed to grab a back seat ride as well that day in an F1 Rocket,,,, sheesh what can I say but, that is an awesome plane! The takeoff was intense regarding power and it also flew like it was on rails. Sadly, way out of my budget regarding running costs and ownership, but I won't forget that ride for a while. 

I had a bit of a typo in the post previously regarding the amount of rivets. I think I mentioned 1000. Well that figure was a little out it seems. Had a bit of a look at the inventory and 3000+ would be closer to the money. I am starting to make quite a pile of spent rivet shafts on the floor so a good clean up will be in order next break. 

I have also added an email subscribe button to the bottom of the page (I think ) so that if you add your email I guess you will see when I update the blog. This post will be a good test as I have added my wife's email to test it. I can't see if anyone has added their email or not so I don't know who, or if any, ppl had signed up to it. Maybe when I get a bit more used to this blog perhaps I may find a section in the stats page or something. 

Getting the Biz done,,,,,,,

It was a pretty good day today. I got up early-ish and was down working in the shed at about 6.30am. I was messing around again with the horizontal stabilizer and getting ready to up drill and rivet it all together.

All was going quite well but I had to deviate from the plan and do a few missions un- plane related :(   ,,,haha,  nah was all good.
 I had a phone call early in the piece reminding me of a interesting thing happening at the airport today.  Later, at 10.45am I'm guessing, the inbound call was heard on the airband  radio and my mate called me to let me know about the arrival of two inbound Chinook Helicopters at YGEL. I headed straight down there for a look, as you do, and a chin wag with some of our Army guys. We were allowed an on board walk around and took heaps of photos whilst they refueled and prepared to set off for Perth

Anyway after that I was pretty pumped so I came back home and got down to the grind again. I managed to get the whole horizontal stabilizer all drilled, deburred, riveted and ready for skinning tomorrow...maybe if time allows.
I've spent, without exaggerating, hours looking for a bracket for the vertical stabilizer. I am at the stage now where I am pretty much certain it hasn't come in the kit. I will email Sonex tonight for their opinion.

Here's tomorrows mission if I can find that missing Spar ,,,,, Vertical stabilizer.

Let's get crack'n

 Well I'm back from work and had a bit of a look at the plane today. I managed to lay out most of the horizontal stabilizer parts and cleco those bad boys together. Looks pretty cool and only took a short time really.

Of course it all has to come apart again and be drilled and riveted in stages but it was nice seeing it there. So I took it all apart and updrilled the main spar at the back, deburred it and took off all the rough edges. It's bringing back some, I guess sort of  painful memories, about how long a project like this will actually take and the work involved. During the kit inventory I noted that Sonex have supplied about 1000 rivets. That doesn't count the baffles and other things so just to put it in perspective. That's drilling at the very least another 1000 holes, duburring and finally riveting.  Needless to say,,,,, I have a fair bit of work to go :)   Still that's all part of it ,,,, and I guess I wouldn't have it any other way.

The first part updrilled and deburred. Ready for Rivets :)