A little progress XL H-58

[Chuck in Indiana]

Did the biggest part of the seat today. If you don't have a shear.. take it to someone that does.  It only takes a few minutes, so they wouldn't charge you much.
This is the way I did it. I'm not saying this is the only way, or even the right way..
Made an extra vertical member for layout. Stacked, clamped, and drilled all of the verticals.

Laid out, and screwed them to the table at each end. Drilled and clecoed.

Doesn't look like much, but there is a fair amount of deburring, reassembly, etc. Took about 5 hours all in all.
Tomorrow, I'll do the rest of the clecos. I'll probably use conventional rivets, and probably rivet them in assembly in the still to be built fuselage. TBD. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

Riveting takes a fair amount of "feel" with the bucking bar. Decided to just hang it up and wait until my hand heals some more. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

Formed the tail ribs today.

No matter how I laid them out, there isn't enough material to make the gussets, too. Fortunately, I have some .025" left over from another project. If you see this before you order stock.. get at least another 2-3 square feet.
If you haven't seen these.. Kevlar glove are just the ticket for working with thin sheet metal. Available at your friendly industrial supplier.

[Chuck in Indiana]

In the spirit of "doing something every day.."  I cut up the tail spars. Just a heads up. The material list calls for (2) 12 foot lengths of tubing. 4 are 44inches long. If you just start cutting those up, you'll be sorry. 
I have a metal cutting blade 3/32" wide with 100 teeth for the saw. It cuts it like butter, of course.
This is what is left of one 12 foot piece if you cut (2) 44" and (1) 55 1/2" piece..

[Chuck in Indiana]

Rudder trailing edge..

There is a fair amount of spring back.

Since this is only 3/8", I tried a tubing bender first. Epic fail.  Packed it with white playground sand that I've had for (gasp) 50 years for doing this kind of stuff.
Formed the elevator trailing edges this morning.

Now for the 5/8" leading edges. I'm probably not man enough to cave man these.. especially with my still healing rebuilt hand.

[Kamcoman77]

Chuck, I was able to hand bend all my empennage tubing using the little tube spring type benders (no sand) and putting a long bar inside the tube ends. The 5/8" is stiff, but once you get the bend started, it isn't too hard.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Like many problems, the worrying about it was harder than the doing it.  It was easier than I expected.. just packed them with sand and bent them.

[jrbirdman47]

I found the same thing, Chuck: I worried and schemed on how to do the difficult tasks, and then once I finally started them, they just got done and it wasn't so hard as I had thought. Of all the skills I learned or improved while building this contraption, I think THIS is the biggest one because it applies to most everything in life!

[Chuck in Indiana]

^^^^^ That's a fact..

[Chuck in Indiana]

Thanks for that, Pete.. forewarned is forearmed.  I'll make sure to have a straight cable run to the rudder horn.
Nice work, btw..

[Chuck in Indiana]

As I looked farther at your picture, Pete.. I thought I'd add this for people that may find this picture in the future. I realize that this is not the final hardware, but I see some elastic nuts where there should be castle nuts and cotter pins.
The verbiage is "subject to rotation."

[scottiniowa]

As I looked farther at your picture, Pete.. I thought I'd add this for people that may find this picture in the future. I realize that this is not the final hardware, but I see some elastic nuts where there should be castle nuts and cotter pins.
The verbiage is "subject to rotation."

While I didn't blow up the photo, to really look, I will concur with Chuck, for a pittance of time and effort, these "subject to rotation" bolts should be done with castle nuts.  You never want to say, " I should have done that differently", over 10 feet off the ground.

Things like this are just as preventable as NOT making parts with no concerns of stress risers... just shouldn't be done.

Scott

[914pete]

As I looked farther at your picture, Pete.. I thought I'd add this for people that may find this picture in the future. I realize that this is not the final hardware, but I see some elastic nuts where there should be castle nuts and cotter pins.
The verbiage is "subject to rotation.

Correct. As I mentioned at this stage I was just test fitting with fasteners I had laying around. Definitely not the final hardware. I'll delete the post.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Correct. As I mentioned at this stage I was just test fitting with fasteners I had laying around. Definitely not the final hardware. I'll delete the post.

I wish you hadn't done that. I'm at this stage, and pictures of how someone else did it are always helpful. I, personally, would like to see more.
I *certainly* wasn't demeaning your work.. just giving a heads up if an inexperienced builder was following this thread. And.. I do the same. I only use aircraft hardware the *last* time I assemble something.

[Chuck in Indiana]

I've never seen hinges done this way. If Leonard thought of it.. attaboy.  They *are* kind of hard to make, though. Once you get good weld penetration, your slip fit on the tubing and pins is gone. Fortunately, I could run a 3/4" end mill through the big diameter. It's at least big enough if you don't have that capability that you can use a die grinder or Dremel to remove the excess.
Comma but.
What about that 1/4" diameter? Don't even think about using a drill. A 1/4" chucking reamer will follow a hole, remove the excess, not grab, etc. Unfortunately, when I laid the reamer down to take a picture, I didn't notice that the picture didn't show the flutes. 

Like I said, pretty labor intensive. By the time I welded, sawed, milled, reamed, deburred, and drilled the rivet holes it took all day. Well, one of my "retired" days, anyway. 
Another small bite.