Carlson Skunk Works

February 6th, 2007

AMF-14H Maranda SN:1026 Construction Log

Posted by Roger in AMF 14H Maranda SN1026, news

Nothing much to report today. I did empty another coffee can and added it to my collection. I also recieved the Wicks catalog in the mail.

Chris pointed out that cutting the 1 mm plywood is covered in the GBI manual. Thanks, Chris!

For the record here is a list of the materials that I have purchased to date:
118 – 1/4 x 1/4 x 60 inch spruce cap strips
2 – 1/4 x 1 1/4 x 60 inch spruce cap strips
2 – 1/4 x 1 3/4 x 60 in ch spruce cap strips
1 – 48 x 48 x 1 mm birch plywood
1 – 1/2 gallon T-88 adhesive

February 5th, 2007

AMF-14H Maranda SN:1026 Construction Log

Posted by Roger in AMF 14H Maranda SN1026, news

This weekend was busy, but I did manage to get rolling on part production for the ribs. I have cut enough pieces of parts H and K for all of the ribs and have about half of what I need for part L. The parts are labeled starting just behind the nose block and beginning with A and proceeding to P which is just in front of the tail block.

Sunday morning I emptied another coffee can and have added it to my collection of parts storage cans. My recommendataion is that as soon as you know that you will be building an airplane start purchasing all your coffee in one pound containers, either plastic or metal. These are just the right size for storing the parts and they don’t take up as much room as the three pound cans.

February 2nd, 2007

AMF-14H Maranda SN:1026 Construction Log

Posted by Roger in AMF 14H Maranda SN1026, news

2/1/2007:
The rib jig has been completed! The first set of rib parts other than the gussets have been cut, so if I cut some gussets I could assemble one rib at this point. However, I am going to use this rib as the pattern and duplicate each piece so that I have enough to assemble all of the ribs before doing any of them.

I have attempted to include some pictures with this post. We will see how they turn out.

Rib Jig

The first image shows the completed rib jig with the rib parts on it. This is from the front end with the jig laying flat on the table. When I work on the ribs I keep the jig flat on the table. The spruce for the ribs is in the cardboard box on the back of the table. The pieces that I bent are fairly easily seen. The bent ends are to the left center of the picture.

This also shows the tools that I am using at this time. Rib building is a very nice winter indoor sport 😉 The ribs require only hand tools. I am using a manual staple gun, but some of my friends have purchased pneumatic guns for their projects. My biggest problem with the manual staple gun right now is accuracy, but that will probably improve with practice.

At the far end of the table is my pull saw. In the picture it sort of looks like a butcher’s knife. This is an interesting device. The blade has very fine teeth and is very flexible. A single good pull on the saw will cut through a 6 mm x 6 mm piece of spruce. There is very little kerf, so the waste is minimal. The only issue is that it has difficulty distinguishing between wood, paper and skin.

Rib Jig 2

This is a view from across the room. I was trying to get a better shot of the whole jig, but it doesn’t show up very well due to the angle. It does give an idea of my work area.

Rib Jig 3

Here I set the jig up on its edge so that you could see the whole rib better. One of the spruce stips cracked while I was trying to bend it on Friday last week. I replaced it with another piece and boiled that one a bit longer. However, you can see that I managed to salvage that piece by using it for the bottom stringer for this rib. The broken end is to the left.

Rib Jig 4

This picture has the added coffee can. I have been saving coffee cans, from work and home, primarily to store my rib parts. I have a combination of large three pound coffee cans and smaller one pound cans. The term cans is not exactly accurate, since these are the plastic coffee containers rather than the traditional metal cans.

My approach to this is to label each of the pieces needed to build the rib. In this case the labels went from A to P. Then I labeled the coffee cans from A to P. As I cut the pieces I put them in the appropriately labeled coffee can and when it is time to assemble the ribs I will take the pieces from the coffee cans and place them in the jig at the proper location. The coffee can in the picture contains the nose blocks. I have another one that contains the tail blocks.

After I took these pictures I proceeded to start cutting pieces for the ribs. My approach is to cut the longest pieces first and work my way down to the shortest pieces. This keeps the waste to a minimum. So far I have 16 of the “J” pieces which are the longest diagonals in the rib.

Well, I am going to wrap this up for today and see what the page looks like once I publish it.

February 1st, 2007

AMF-14H Maranda SN:1026 Construction Log

Posted by Roger in AMF 14H Maranda SN1026, news

1/30/2007:
It was a busy day. I only had time to rip some strips of 3/16 inch thick plywood to use on the rib jig. I put the strips and my mitre saw in the basement where I will be building the jig and the ribs.

1/31/2007:
The T-88 arrived! Quite a difference from ordering the spruce. Spruce needs a lot of lead time, so I will need to get the next order ready when I start assembling the ribs.

I got some time to work on the rib jig. The top and bottom stringers, nose block and tail block are in place. The next item will be the vertical rib members, then the diagonals.

February 1st, 2007

AMF-14H Maranda SN:1026 Construction Log

Posted by Roger in AMF 14H Maranda SN1026, news

1/29/2007:
Ordered T-88 adhesive from Wicks.

January 29th, 2007

AMF-14H Maranda SN:1026 Construction Log

Posted by Roger in AMF 14H Maranda SN1026, news

The plans were purchased the summer of 2006.

The first batch of materials (Sitka Spruce) were ordered 12/6/2006 from Wicks Aircraft.

The wood arrived on 1/23/2007.

Construction began 1/26/2007:
Laying the rib stringers on the full sized rib pattern I found that there was a bend that was too sharp for the wood to negotiate without breaking. The first order of business was to select 28 stringers to be steamed and bent.

I boiled the leading ten inches of the stringers in water for about 15 minutes, then clamped thier leading 65mm to the kitchen table and clamped their trailing ends between a couple of 1 x 4 pieces of oak. The oak added sufficient weight to bend the stringers. The stringers were allowed to dry for several hours, then were transferred to the basement and reattached to a table there. They continued to dry over night and into the next day. The leading ends of these stringers are now very close to the shape needed for the top of the rib.

Next the nose blocks were cut. I cut 28 pieces from two 1/4 inch thick by 1 3/4 inch wide strips of spruce that were about five feet long each. There is about two feet of one strip left.

Next the tail blocks were cut. I cut 30 tail blocks from two 1/4 inch by 1 1/4 inch strips of spruce five feet long. The tail blocks are 100mm long each, so 30 of them used all of the designated spruce.

1/27/2007:
Not much getting done today due to the requirement to help my wife prepare for a party this evening. However, I did manage to get over to Menards and buy a partacle board shelf (3/4 x 12 x 96) to use for the rib jig. I also purchased a pull saw for cutting the rib pieces.

I cut the shelf down to five foot length, then sprayed the top with spray adhesive and attached the full size rib pattern to it. This will provide a good surface to build ribs on.

1/28/2007:
Didn’t get to work on the plane today.

1/29/2007:
Ordered T-88 adhesive from Wicks.

January 25th, 2007

The Skunkworks is Live!

Posted by ben in news

To help me keep track of the airplane project my Dad is working on, I setup this website. In addition, I’ll be posting some of my projects, and heck, if your last name is Carlson, create an account, and post your project!

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