Carlson Skunk Works

May 27th, 2011

AMF 14H Maranda SN:1026 Making Sawdust May 27, 2011

Posted by Roger in AMF 14H Maranda SN1026, news

More progress and more pictures!

The sheet steele parts are done. The large tube has been cut and drilled. The jig for the windshield frame has been constructed and parts are starting to be fitted into place in it.

These are the finished sheet steele pieces for the windshield frame that were shown in my last post as a a piece of sheet with a bunch of holes drilled in it. I cut them out mostly with my Dremel tool, but finished up using my trusty old hacksaw. Once the parts were cut out I used a file to deburr the edges.

Two of the pieces have bends but I don’t have a metal break. I put each of them in my vice and carefully applied pressure to make the bend. I started with finger pressue until I had about a 20 degree bend, then I used a 2×2 and a hammer to GENTLY tap the tab to a right angle. It seemed to work ok and when I was done I checked the finished angle with a square and it was very close to perfect.

The Windshield Frame Jig

The windsheild frame jig is built from 1/2″ plywood and some fir backing pieces to screw things to in order to keep everything in place. This is used to hold the various parts in position until they are all tack welded together. Once the tack welding is complete the jig will be disassembled to allow access to all sides of each joint. Once all the parts are cut and fitted I will cut the lower back corners off of the sides to make it flatter for transport.

Wing Attach Holes Being Drilled

The top windshield frame tube connects the front wing spars together. A 5/16″ bolt goes through the front spar brackets and a 7/16″ tube that goes through holes drilled in the top tube. This is how I drilled the holes for these bolts in this tube. Essentially this picture shows the drilling jig that I used.

I cut the tube to length and deburred the ends. Then I screwed the blocks on the jig on one side of the tube. Then I put a 3/4″ boart on the other side of the tube and used that as a straight edge to draw a line the length of the tube with a fine point sharpy. Next I made a cross mark 20mm from each end of the tube which is the location of the cross tubes and center punched the location.

The holes are required to be exactly throught the center of the tube so that both wings can be bolted onto the plane at the same angle. So I started by using the extra tube that I cut off off to test my jig. I drilled a pilot hole first and verified that it was being drilled exactly through the center of the tube and to verify that it was perpendicular to the length of the tube. Once I was satisfied that my jig was holding thing properly, I drilled the pilot holes in the top tube. When the pilot holes were done I put a 7/16″ drill in the drill press, repositioned the jig to allow for the longer drill and drilled the finished holes.

After deburring the holes and verifying that the cross tube could be inserted into place, I slid the top tube into the windshield frame jig. I pushed it through the hole in one side piece, then installed the two sheet steele pieces with the bends. I was very careful to orient the pieces correctly according to the plans. Then I pushed the tube through the other jig end.

Now I only have to cut and fit the four 5/8″ tubes that make up the rest of the windshield frame. Oh, and the two cross tubes for the wing attachments.

May 25th, 2011

AMF 14H MARANDA SN:1026 Making Sawdust May 25, 2011

Posted by Roger in AMF 14H Maranda SN1026, news

It is seven months until Christmas! Do you have your shopping done? I don’t. However, progress has been made on Sawdust and I am getting excited.

The days have been cool and rainy, so I have been taking the glue into the house at night so it will be at room temperature when I am ready to glue. This has worked quited nicely and now both sides have been completed. The current project is getting the pieces and the jig for the windshield frame ready for our my brother in law to weld.

So, on to the pictures and commentary:

Here I am sitting in the cockpit of Sawdust making airplane noises. This is the left side of the fuselage. The right side is complete now, too. Both of the sides are now haning on the south wall of the garage.

Here is another view of the left side with the pilot installed. At this point things are still pretty much virtual, but progress is being made. The exciting part about the sides is that they are identical when hung side by side. Except for the left/right differences, that is.

There are a couple of things that still need to be done on the sides before the fuselage can be assembled. The side window openings need to be cut, the leading edge of the airfoil shape needs to be trimmed, and the edges need to be sanded. I intentionally waited until now to cut the window openings because I wanted to be sure that they were cut exactly the same. I will clamp the sides together and cut both openings at the same time. The leading edge mainly needs to be sanded to shape, so I will do both sides at the same time by clamping them together and marking the outline that I will need to follow.

The other thing on the sides is that I need to drill the hole for the top pipe of the windshield frame to go through on each side.

Windshield Frame Sheet Steele Parts

The windshield frame is the next component to build. This assembly is made from 4130 steele and connects the leading wing spars to the engine mount. I built a jig to keep the parts positioned while they are tack welded. Most of the parts are made from steele tubing, but there are a few that are made from sheet steele.

The sheet steele parts needed to have some holes drilled in them. The larger holes are 1 3/8″ diameter and the smaller ones are 13/64″ (#11). I started by making tagboard templates of the parts, then I taped them to the steele and center punched the hole locations and traced around the template so I will know where to cut the steele. Then I drilled pilot holes at each hole location, then I drilled all the #11 holes. I purchased a bimetal hole saw to “drill” the large holes. Before drilling the large holes I fastened the steele sheet to a 2×6 with a few screws.

May 18th, 2011

AMF 14H Maranda SN:1026 Making Sawdust May 18, 2011

Posted by Roger in AMF 14H Maranda SN1026, news

Was my last post really in December? Wow! Time flies regardless of whether one is having fun or not. Oh, yeah, I remember now. I was having problems inserting pictures, so I gave up posting for a while. I will try it again and see what happens.

Winter was not a productive time for Sawdust. However, spring is doing much better. I now have two fuselage sides and the metal for the windshield frame. Let’s see if I can get a picture inserted here.

Well, what about that! It worked!

Ok, so there is what I have accomplished so far this year. Both sides are in one piece, but only have their gussets on one side. I am now ready to glue the gussets to the other side of each fuselage side.

A bit of explanation about the picture: The fuselage side that is hanging up is the right side of the fuselage. The one sitting on the floor is the left side of the fuselage. The view is the outside of both sides.

If you look in toward the top of the left half of the picture you can see the right wing hanging from the cieling. There is just enough clearance between the garage door and the cieling to allow the wings to be hung there. However, the lights are positioned such that I cannot install the alerons and still hang the wings. I am going to have to look for a larger workshop pretty soon.