More rudder pedal work - 2.5 hours

I've been giving a lot of thought as to how to drill these angles, I finally decided that the way I was going to do it is on the drill press, on an angle.

I scanned in the rudder pedal into AutoCAD to find the angle geometery of the pedal. Using this information I was able to create a template that I could use as a setup for the drill press...to drill the correct angle.

It is a tedious process but I managed to clamp each F-6115C angle to a wood block and then open up the #30 holes step by step to a 3/16" reamed hole. The result once the assembly is cleco'd together is that the holes lined up fairly well....very small adjustments needed to make the bolts fit very well.



I then started trimming the 45deg angles at the bottom of the pedals.

More work on the rudder pedals - 1 hour

I've ordered the long AN3-56 bolts for the rudder pedals rather than use the short individual bolts from Van's. I hope that I can maximize on the smoothness of the break action by making this modification. (I really hope so because the bolts are not cheap...~$17 each).

So I used the F-6117A side plates to mark and drill the pilot holes for the AN3 bolts in the angles. I've been giving some thought as to how best to drill these as the holes need to be slightly angled to allow proper alignment of those long AN3 bolts. To help prepare this, I drilled the #30 pilot holes using the 12" bit to help get that proper alignment going.

I have a round file that exactly a #30 diameter so I used that to help get the correct alignment.

I am going to have to give some more thought on how to get these holes drilled so they align properly.

Worked on rudder pedals - 8.5 hours

Since I am still waiting for my new F-902 bulkheads (sent snail mail). I jumped to the next section of the build being the rudder/brake pedals. It was a good build session, managed to put in a few hours today however the progress was slow as working with the plastic is tedious.

From what I have learned about drilling the flap blocks, I am more prepared to drill these pedal blocks. First step is that I made a template out of aluminum and placed #40 pilot holes in the correct location.

These get clamped to the top, and then the bottom of the plastic block allowing me to use the palm drill to correctly place a #40 starter hole....This starter hole is just a few thousandths deep and is  meant to just mark the top of the plastic as a guide for drilling on the drill press.

Once I have the holes "Marked" I then set-up the drill press. Making sure the platform/drill bit is all square. I used 2"x 2" oak blocks to clamp everything down to the drill press platform. Now, comes the tedious part. Once happy with the drill press alignment. I drilled the holes with #40 jobber bit but only half-way through. Then I flip the block over and do the same - drill halfway through. I use the jobber bit as its shorter, more stiff, and less likely to wander when drilling through thick plastic. Drilling halfway reduces the potential for wander.

I worked through #40, #30, #2, #15 this way...Only halfway through and flipping it to do the other side. Each time I am able to check that the holes align perfectly when looking through the hole.


I then finished the holes using a #10 bit set rather loose in the drill jig but drilling all the way through this time. The result is excellent...I have a good "pilot" hole that allows the #10 bit to track all the way through and not wander.

Next tedious (scary part) that I was dreading was to cut the F-6115 center pedal block. I finally decided that cutting these on the bandsaw was the way to go, but I am nervous about it as I have a cheap Ryobi band-saw and the blade isn't that rigid. So I clamped a large oak block to the band saw as a guide.

The result is really good. Uhhh, big worry off my mind that it all went well.

I moved on to cleaning up the rudder pedals and fabricated the F-6117C angles for the pedals.

Constructed the Van's Aircraft Sign

Decided to take put aside the airplane build and I just messed around with putting the Van's Aircraft sign box together.Turned out really nice and now I can put it on display in my office at work.

Started to install the F-7101 gear webs - 6 hours

I started the build session with making the new spacers our of 0.032" material. Easy to do as I have perfect templates with thicker material.


I then used AD426 rivets and scotch tape to hold/alight the spacers on the gear web so I could cleco in the F-902 bulkheads.

With everything set, I was ready to drill.


Spacers looked great!

The right side of the aircraft came out really good, but for some reason left side wasn't sitting correctly when I drilled. I noticed something was off when I tried to disassemble. Yup, sure enough, the alignment is all sort of off.  I believe I didn't have the keeper cleco in the left side gear web correctly and as a result I misdrilled the F-902 bulkhead. Darn...I gotta order that new part.

I decided that it's best I just prep the gear webs for final drilling to ensure a great fit. I spent some time really trying to get a good radius on the 0.063 material so it will nest well with the F-717 longerons.

Then I drilled the top line of the gear attach webs. It least this turned out well.

Test fitting the F-7101 gear web - 1 hour

I did some test fitting with the F-7101 gear web. I decided to drill one keeper hole on each side to help keep things straight and in line.

Once I had that figure out, I test fit the F-902 bulkhead and gear web and realized the 0.063" spacers I made are too thick. I will need to make them again out of 0.032" material.

Messed with the fit of the F-902 bulkhead - 1.5 hours

Tonight I didn't spend a big day in the garage. I took a good look at the fitment of the F-902 bulkhead with the F-717 longeron. The bulkheads seem to want to lift the F-717 just a bit so they do not sill parallel with the angle of the bottom skin. Both the bottom mounting tab and the flange impede the F-717 sitting where it should. So some very slight and careful adjusting of the bottom flanges are necessary.

Looking much better....The F-717 sits parallel to the bottom skin.