A little progress XL H-58

[Chuck in Indiana]

"I *almost* forgot to slide them on the spar before riveting.."

Any job worth doing is worth doing twice 

True.. true. Drilling out rivets is one of my very favorite jobs. I couldn't get my pop rivet gun in to rivet the rudder horn, so I used conventional AD rivets. Naturally, I put a smile in the first one.  It took considerably longer to drill that bad boy out than.. oh, never mind..
It sure made me appreciate that $30 HF rivet puller. It has been worth it's weight in gold.

[jrbirdman47]

We're building two XL's and my partner had a pneumatic puller. Cannot imagine doing all 50,000, (At least it seemed that many), rivets with a squeeze puller. As usual, beautiful build and great pics which will undoubtably help those at this stage in the future!

[Chuck in Indiana]

Ok, now..how to locate those bushings for the wire bracing? A guy's gotta know his limitations  and I know for a fact I couldn't measure accurately enough. I have this home made (naturally) strap duplicator in 1/8". 3/16 would have been perfect, of course.. but I didn't have one. Ground the end down so it would fit in the corner.

Made a dummy bushing 3/4" long minus the .035" of the duplicator and drilled 1/8"dia. through.

Here you can see where the hole will be.

Drilled through the gusset and clecoed.

Tapped the dummy around to make sure it was sitting as good as I could get it against the rib and spar, and drilled through. Opened the holes up to 3/16" and Bob's your uncle.
How long did it take? Less time than telling about it. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

Officially started on the fuselage a couple of days ago. Turned the top over on the building bench so I can set it on fire.   Looked at my fire extinguisher and it needs recharged. I'll get that done tomorrow. Laid out the bottom longerons. Leonard's sketch says 12 inches at station 4 (from memory) , but my layout says 12 1/2. I'll go with that.
Bought a wheel for the bench grinder, took a piece of carborundum and hand dressed a 5/16" radius on it. That'll help with fitting up the tubing, and the wire wheel will clean them up.

Started fitting up tubes and tacking them in..

There is a potential "gotcha" in the sketches. It "appears to me" that Leonard shows the bottom of the fuselage as viewed from the top instead of the normal way of drawing a 3 view..at any rate, that is what I'm going with unless someone says I'm wrong.
Home made "third hand" holds the tubing for tacking.

[scottiniowa]

 
Bought a wheel for the bench grinder, took a piece of carborundum and hand dressed a 5/16" radius on it. That'll help with fitting up the tubing, and the wire wheel will clean them up.

Just a heads up for those that have not done before, (clean up tubing), while the wire wheel works very well, they need to be set back just like shown in the photo, when out over the bench, they can take the clothes right off you, when done using and you turn away from it, while it is coasting to a stop. And I caution to say, if you have the option, a vertical belt sander is perhaps a lot more safer. 

This is just a word to the wise, not condemning any method.  And if your asking, why do they need to be cleaned up so much, this goes into all kinds of contamination issues for welding, but simply said, the welds will be SO MUCH better when cleaned tubing is used. (less as important for gas welding vs tig welding) but always true.

Also for newbies,  NEVER use brake cleaner for cleaning agent.. Enough said.

Chuck is doing a great job, attn to details for fixtures really helps like he has shown.
Best of Success. 
Scott

[Chuck in Indiana]

Also for newbies,  NEVER use brake cleaner for cleaning agent.. Enough said.

Thanks for that, Scott.. I should have thought of mentioning that. I use acetone after wire brushing. To anyone looking at this.. Don't even *think* of using brake cleaner.
From the google machine:

The chemical in the brake cleaner is Tetrachloroethylene. When this chemical is exposed with excessive heat and argon (used in MIG and TIG welding) it also produces phosgene. ... Google Phosgene and read more! It can be fatal with a dose as little as 4 parts per million.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Ok, the ladder is tacked, time to bend the bottom up. A big piece of stainless tubing out of my "good junk" pile will hold it down and not have a sharp corner at the bend.

I'll get my lovely assistant  to gently pull up the bottom longerons until the bottom hits the pencil mark and hold it there while I fan the flames  and slowly cool the bend.

Awesome..

From here, it will be a simple matter of doing the trig to find the actual angle, and cut some 2X4s on that angle to keep the longerons straight.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Back in the olden days before CAD (!) I bought this programmable calculator, and programmed several math things I did all the time in Basic. One of them is a triangle calculator.

So I set my miter saw on (ahem) 8.17590 degrees  and cut up some blocks to hold the longerons straight.

While I was at it, cut some vertical members to hold the top longeron.

Everything is being measured off the center line of the fuselage, so I dropped a plumb bob off the side of the tubing and screwed down the clamp on the front.

A piece of 1/8" aluminum holds the rear longeron on center of the tail post.

"Tweeeeet." Lunch whistle.    I'll tack the tail post after lunch.

[Theodore]

Plz give advice, thumbs up?
I cut 3/8" 6061 tubing too short for trailing edge rudder. my bends/radius are good, i want to splice tubing by 'telescoping'. I when to local supplier they sent me home with 1/2" thicker wall so 3/8 fits well inside. (i went there to buy 3/8 x .035 but they needed to order.

planning to put slice just below first gusset(top) and fasten with rivets, (maybe weld) 6" piece/coupling

I DECIDED to put splice at gusset above rudder horn rib, larger gusset there, just rivet yes, Ha! trim tab mount! i like that!

Busy day, not much build time
New pic shows telescoping repair, 6" piece of 1/2" under 4 1/2" gusset lots of room for rivets,

[Chuck in Indiana]

Sounds like it would work. I wouldn't weld on it. Of course, you'll have to answer the "what's up with the thick piece on the trailing edge" questions. You could say you thought it would be a good place for a trim tab if it needed one. 
If it were me, I'd just buy a new piece of trailing edge and make a new one, though..
Let's see a picture when your battery gets charged.

[scottiniowa]

   
If it were me, I'd just buy a new piece of trailing edge and make a new one, though..
Let's see a picture when your battery gets charged.

yep, on idea of a new piece,  (often when I do a "piece fill" on a frame or section, it could be/would be just as cost effective, in both parts cost and labor)  We use the term -throw away- in the shop, meaning it is more effective to toss than to fill in and repair. this is of course if you value your labor at more than hobby time.

best of success to you.
Scott

[Theodore]

i stepped up in deburring, although still use rat tail and flat file

[Theodore]

Chuck,
How didu cut slot in gusset @ rudderhorn?
drill and dremel?

[Chuck in Indiana]

drill and dremel?

I have a milling machine, so..  I used a 3/16" end mill.
If I didn't, I have a band saw blade welder, so I'd drill the holes in the end, run the band saw stock through it, weld it and saw the slots out.
If I didn't have that..  I'd use a drill and Dremel. Actually, I have little high speed "pencil grinders" used in mold making that I'd use instead of a Dremel and burr, but it will get the job done.
*Be careful.* Those things can get away from you in a heartbeat and screw up your carefully made gusset. Need I say that eye protection is a must? 

[Chuck in Indiana]

I can hear you now.. "Chuck, you've been slackin'" No updates for a few days. Well, I wasted a lot of time have been practicing with the TIG I've had for probably 20 years. I've never properly learned to use it on thin wall tubing, so have been watching youtube videos, blowing holes  watching more videos, etc. After all, I'm doing this for *something to do.* I've always gas welded, so why not TIG this one? How hard could it be?
Real. 
One of the *good* things about TIG is how little heat is involved. Jigging a tube up can just be some painter's tape.

Here you can see a plumb bob dropped off the side of the top tube that lines up with a line 5/16" to the side of the center line. Nothing fussy.. after all we are working from a chalk line, but just trying to keep things centered as well as I can.

Here is something that certainly caught me off guard, and may catch others. I've never seen one tube doing this job before, always two. I just happened to notice "one tube" on the sketch, looked at some walk arounds on youtube, and sure enough.. one tube.

Everything tacked in this far, and still straight.

Will I be able to TIG the whole thing? I doubt it. I'll keep tacking and practicing, though.