4/14/2008
Jeez! Six days slipped right by! It's still not warm enough to do any canopy fitting and trimming, and I still need to get a good weekend to clean the garage out, so I am gonna work on a few odds and ends in the meantime. Yesterday I did get a great workday in on my friend Jim's Sonex though! We started building his right wing spar. It was a lot of fun!
I noticed the other day that I had a very slight, and I mean SLIGHT, wobble in the left wheel. Tonight I addressed that first by tightening the axel nut one sixth of a turn to use the next hole. Worked fine, and I realized I must have missed the mark the last time the wheel went on the other day. No pics.
Then I started working on the canopy reinforcement kit. This is a set of three braces that go inside the canopy frame, and mount to the frame and the 702 skin. First, I marked a centerline on the forward canopy frame-
Then I bent the tabs on the outer two braces, making a left and a right brace. This was done using the frame and skin as a guide to get the tabs bent properly.
There are a few holes that aren't pre-punched on the braces, so I marked and drilled those next.
I also made six clasps that will stiffen the braces. These are made from .032 2024-T3 sheet stock.
The pic is kind of blurry, but I marked out the cut lines, then drilled the holes, then cut them out with the bandsaw. You can see the clasp on the plans just above the piece. The plans are a small version that come with the reinforcement kit.
I'm gonna need to get creative on figuring out a way to block up the frame on one of the table to make sure there is no twist in the frame when the braces get drilled...next time perhaps.
2.5 hours