Fuselage fittings

I had the pleasure of working on Richard Epton's delightfull Bucker Bestmann yesterday when he mentioned that he would gladly "knock the rust of your Jenny fittings". So, I took him up on the offer.....



Kidding aside, Richard is going to bead blast the fittings and give them a good coat of PPG epoxy primer DP90.



Here's a close up of the fittings in the "before" state. I'll post the "after " pictures as soon as he has them finished.

Had a chance to mate the fin to the stabilizer today. I'll post these pictures later as well.

Till then

Enjoy

Brian

fin fitting

Drilled the front fitting yesterday. It's a 3/16 in. hole for an AN3 bolt.



Here's the fitting after bending and prior to brazing.



Now, for the rear attach fitting. I did not have a drawing for this so I just guessed from the picture. I did know one dimention from the stabilizer drawing - the holes for the spoon bolts are 1 1/8 in. from the centerline. Using this information, I cut the pieces out of .060 steel and shaped them on the grinder. According to the Hood fin drawing, the ears are 2 in. high.



Here's the fitting after brazing. It's ready for the bead blaster and paint. The upper fin holes will be drilled later.



Here's the fitting in place.



More later.

Brian

fin fitting and rudder

Cut the front fin attach fitting from .125 steel with the bandsaw. The picture shows where the piece will go when finished.



Also, bent the trailing edge of the rudder today. Here's son #2 inspecting the work.



More tomorow.

Enjoy

Brian

fin and rudder

OK - back from the Bucker fly-in. Had a great time. Here's the latest progress:

The blocks were sanded to shape on the fin. Here's the top part of the fin. A simple portable belt sander did the trick.



Here's a shot of the middle of the fin. You can see the taper from 1 in. to 9/16 in. (sorry it's a bit blurry)



I began work on the rudder. When laying out the dimentions on the table, the Curtiss drawings called for a 62 1/4 in radius to make up the trailing edge. That's a whole lot bigger than my table, so I decided to use the floor and make a template. I swung the arc on a piece of paper and cut it out to shape.



Then I added it to the other dimentions already set on the table. This gave me the lines to set the forming blocks.



Hope to start bending tubing soon!

Brian

vertical fin and rudder

Added the reenforcing blocks today. Once the glue has had a day to cure, I will begin the sanding. This will transition the 1in trailing edge to the 9/16in leading edge. I'll get some before and after shots tomorow.



Here's the pattern for the front steel attach point. It's .125 in. stock. There will be two pieces - one straight and one bent. Both will be welded together.



Here's the fitting on the plans. Just so you can see where the pieces will eventually go.



While the fin was drying, I set up the forming blocks for the rudder. More on this later!



Taking the weekend off to go to the East Coast Bucker fly-in. See you when I return

Enjoy

Brian

Put the vertical and horizontal braces in today. Also, there were a few places where gussets had to be made to transition from the 1" rear vertical spar to the 9/16" cross brace. They will be sanded to size later.



More tomorow.

Have a Bucker Jungmann with a bum magneto that has to be fixed tomorow, otherwise it's back on the Jenny.

Brian

veritcal fin

Worked on the fin today.

Here's the hot water bent lower fin after gluing the two pieces together. They are also held fast by countersinking several brass screws. You can see them below. This forms an inverted "T" section.



While that was drying, I cut out the grooves to accept the two hinge fittings in the vertical spar. The fitting centerline was set to 5/16in.



Then, the entire structure was glued together.



Another shot outside. During the next shop day, I hope to have the vertical and horizontal pieces cut and glued. Plus, I can do some trimming and fitting.



Enjoy

Brian

Hisso Engine parts

We just purchased a set of Hispano-Suiza cylinder banks! They seem like they are in pretty good shape considering they are 80 years old. The insides are still coated with cosmoline.



Here's a closer shot.



More later. Been a busy week at work.

Brian