A Table You Could Jig On.

With the wings pretty much wrapped up it was time to start in earnest on the metal portions of the build. I figured it would be best to start small and work my way up to the fuselage. This meant starting on the tail surfaces. Before I could do that, however, I needed a large, flat, level surface to lay everything out on. Since the fuselage will also need a large, flat, level surface to build on and I don't want to build two tables, the jig table will be quite large. How large? 4 feet wide and 14.5 feet long. This will give me enough room to lay out the full fuselage with jig blocks around the edges and still have space to walk around one end of the table.

Once the fuselage is tack welded I won't need the full 14+ feet of table, so I built it to be reconfigured into a smaller, 4x8 foot table for jigging out things like landing gear.

Apparently I didn't take any pictures of the table, but here is the CAD drawing I made for it. The frame is made from 2x4. There is a pair of outer frames that make up most of the table and an inner frame that spans the joint between the two outer frames. When I want to reconfigure to the 4'x8' table everything in green will be removed and used for other projects.

Cheyenne had some pictures from our garage sale that show the gist of the jig table. This picture is of the seam where the table can split apart. It is supported by a couple 2x4 legs around the perimeter and my two adjustable sawhorses.
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Comments

Gear Legs

Last updated November 8th, 2022!? Time sure gets away from you sometimes, doesn't it. Woof.. A lot of time was spend figuring out main landing gear legs. The first step was taking the info from the Piper drawings and laying out the gear v's full size on my table, then jigging the parts in place. This is what we're building. The left side of the picture would be facing the front of the aircraft. And here's the jig laid out on my table. The nearer jig sets the relationship between the forward tube and the axle. The farther jig aligns the forward and rear tube as well as the bushings on which the gear leg will pivot. With the jigs laid out it's time to manufacture parts. First came the pivot bushings, and they were a bit of a process. First the little U-shaped piece of metal that holds the bushing needs to get bent to shape. I made a little die the right size to bend the material in my vice. After the U is bent it then gets a notch ground out to fit around the...

10 months in under 10 minutes.

I don't feel like going into depth on every little aspect of work I've done over the last 10 months, so I'll hit the highlights and if anyone has questions, feel free to comment and I'll elaborate. As the year started the garage was cold. With a propane heater it would get warm enough to work for a few hours, but because 4130 steel is an air-tempered alloy, it needs to be sufficiently warm out for welding. Long story short; I can't weld, so I make parts. I plugged away making little bits so I can use them when it comes time to build a new assembly. The landing gear legs and spring struts have metal straps to reinforce the bushings in the ends. I knocked these out in a couple days after work. Likewise, the tabs that will become door hinges and the fittings for the tailwheel were cut, drilled, and deburred. As it warmed up and I got an order of laser-cut parts the aileron control arm and pulley brackets were welded to the torque tube for the control stick. I also cu...

Fuselage Sides

Once the tail surfaces were done and I decided to pursue widening the fuselage to 38" I could clear the jig blocks from the table and paint over the lines for the tail. I then laid out all the dimensions for the fuselage side onto the fresh white paint. It's worth noting here that the plans give views of the top, bottom, and side of the fuselage, as if you are looking straight at the side. However, the sides angle back in space, so if you were to flatten that side out to lay on the table, it will actually be longer than the dimensions given on the drawing. In drafting, flattening out a panel like that is referred to as "developing". Widening the fuselage by almost 5" also changes the length of the side, so the developed side is actually 1.5" longer than shown in the side view. I drew up the developed side in CAD and used the dimensions from CAD to lay out on the table. The dimensions given on the drawing are to tubing centerlines and need to be offset to s...

Aviation Coming Eventually

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