Prime & Dimpling the Flap

On the 24th I finished drilling all the holes and started deburing operations. Quite tiring and very boring. My thumb and forefingers hurt from the deburing process.

Here is a picture of the flap held together with Clecos just before deburing.

I found I needed some more tools for dimpling and riveting, so I ordered a hand squeezer kit from ATS. It works great. I only wish some of the tools I ordered came with instructions. It takes a little guess work at times to figure out how the tools work, but the light goes on at the moment of discovery. I also ordered some more Clecos and some self etching primer for the final assembly of the flap.

Here is a picture of the nose ribs, flap skin stiffeners, spar, & hinge debured, dimpled, & primed. All the inside pieces of the flap will be primed before it is closed up.

Here I am, using the hand squeezer tool to dimple the lower flap skin. It works well on the edges and reaches in about 3". The rivet holes that I can not reach will be a trick to get to. I may need some other dimpling tools to reach them. I should be ready to start final assembly next week.

I have to return to work tomorrow. :(

Thats all for now. BWW

Order Clecos

I ordered 100 3/32 Clecos from ATS today. Hopefully they will be here by the weekend when I am off. I do want to continue on the flap project and see how fast the progress can be.

I know I will be needing some other tooling in the future. I am holding off in case I find I do not want to continue on the whole plane project. So far it has been enjoyable putting around in the garage.

I am signing up for another year of flying at the local club. Need to keep my flying skills sharp and ready for more fun.

Happy landings to all!

BWW

Flap Kit Continued

Between helping my father in-law and sister in-law (both are quite ill) I was able to put some more time in on the flap project for the Mustang II. Stopped by the hardware store and picked up a pair of flanging pliers. They worked great!

I was able to assemble the flap spar, flap hinge, and lower flap skin together with the few Clecos I had (need about 150 more!!!!). The Sears Craftsman spring clamps I got a couple of years ago sure helped.

Reviewing the plans and assembly instructions is very similar to building an RC plane. Only instead of wood it is made from aluminum and i

nstead of glue it is bonded together with solid rivets. (I've done practice rivets, but no rivets in the plane yet!)

Back at work tomorrow. We'll see if I can get some more Clecos by the end of the week.

My 1st rivets.......ever! Not great, but do-able.

Later,

BWW

The Flap Kit arrives

The starter flap kit arrived on Friday, April 9th. The wife found it lying in the side yard about 1 hour before I went to work.

Today, I opened the crate and took inventory of the parts and prints. They seem to have thought of everything right down to a practice riveting kit. So, after the inventory I set 6 rivets with the riveting gun. Not too bad. It felt better then I expected.

I did the first couple of steps in the instructions such as cutting the flap hinge to the correct length, marking the center lines on the lower flap skin and spar, and checking the angles on the spar and the ribs.

I found I am going to need flanging pliers and some duck bill pliers to adjust the angles of the ribs and the spar. I'll check out the hardware store tomorrow.

Later.