Catching Up...

Oh dear... it has been a looooooong time since I updated the blog!

My main excuse is work - - I got quite seriously diverted by the big organizational "push" that we put into AirVenture this summer and never quite picked things up again afterwards.

It's not all bad news, there has been some progress. Over the summer I picked up a few bits & pieces from eBay. Here's a photo of my stash:



Which includes the Zenith altimeter restored and fully functional; a MkV pilot's stopwatch restored and fully functional, plus a replica housing that will attach it the dash; and two never-used Air Ministry brass magneto switches!

Visited Jack Kearbey not once but twice (will report on that in more detail at some future point). Placed a bid on an original 80hp Le Rhone in full working order with all accessories, but didn't get it (again, intend to post pictures & report later).

But progress on the actual project has been pretty slow. Jack kindly gave me a really nice piece of ash from which I can create a tailskid. Right now it's roughed-out and I am sanding it to a finish. I've also acquired the basswood for the instrument panel and all the material for the wing leading edges. Have been working out how to make those, and think that will be my starting point in the new year. My intent then is to do much better than over the past 6 months!

5/31/08 4:00

Have been slammed with work recently, not much in the way of progress. Glued up another couple of ribs and routed about 200 feet of capstrip. That's about it really. Am visiting Jack Kearbey's Pup project in Tulsa next weekend, looking forward to that, his work is legendary.

05/22/08 8:00

Have been extremely busy at work so not a very productive week in terms of project work... glued up a rib, but broke it being too heavy-handed pulling it out of the jig. Glued up another but got very frustrated with it.

The Zenith altimeter came back from the watchmaker, he has built a lovely little gear for it, think it will work perfectly now. Delighted... will reassemble and post photos.

Despite frustrations in the workshop had an excellent experience on Saturday, flew down to visit Joe Hauk's Pup project in New Berlin. Joe was a very generous host and my mind is still spinning with all the information he gave me, and the amazing tour he gave me of his basement.

Captioned slide show follows:

I have 107 hours in the project since January 1... feels like more!

05/11/08 2:30

Best weekend in ages, feel like I've accomplished a lot in terms of "getting organised". Emailed with John Brecher who is running the student project to build a Sopwith Pup in Dallas. He is putting me in touch with a person in Texas who has already put all the Sopwith fittings into CAD and can get them cut out with water jet. John says the quality is very high. He also recommends Western Aircraft Spruce in BC as supplier for the main structural wood. I must admit I am not thrilled with the quality of what I've been receiving from Aircraft Spruce and Specialty. Some of the wood is excellent, tight grained, but some of it is a bit rough. But my biggest beef is (A) I ordered two lots of capstrip from them both ostensibly 3/8" thick; but there is a significant difference, probably 3/32" between the two orders. (B) I asked for a mixture of 5 ft and 6ft lengths in the second order and they sent all 5ft, which is not very helpful.

Update 5/12/08 : I spoke to Spruce today and they are waiving the shipping on a new order of 6ft lengths... so they are partially redeemed...

Updated Slide Show of the San Diego Pup

Alan Westby was in San Diego last week and shot me a bunch more detail shots of the San Diego Pup. Good stuff.

5/10/08 10:00

Best day’s work in a long time. Stopped in at the Weeks hangar first to look at the Bleriot project which is really coming together, the fuselage is taking shape and the whole thing is starting to look like a real aeroplane. Glued up another rib… just two more to go before I have completed the full set of “Type A” ribs! Cut out enough webs for another 6 ribs or so. Will do the 12 “Type C” ribs next, because I have run out of 6ft lengths of capstrip and will need to order more from Aircraft Spruce; the “Type C” ribs are shorter so I can use up the many 5ft lengths that I have. Cleaned up about a month’s worth of sawdust. Got the scrollsaw working again… found that a fuse had popped. Stripped the paint from the Zenith altimeter, tidied up the corrosion and repainted it with black enamel. Visited the clock repair shop to see if they can fix the broken gear on the altimeter. The repairer was not in, but the assistant said he’s fixed aircraft instruments before, so I will stop in later in the week. Studied the plans for the first time in quite a while… I think I’ll order the spar and nosing material next, and also make the instrument panel. Overall it’s been quite a productive week. Alan Westby was in San Diego and shot a whole bunch of detail photos of their Pup. I also talked to Jack Kearbey in Tulsa who is building a Pup – made arrangements to pay him a visit in early June. His work is legendary.

05/06/08 2:00

2 more ribs...

4/30/08 5:00

Hasn't been a great couple of weeks... have managed to get to the hangar for 3 brief visits, on each occasion I glued up a rib. Am now up to 9 of them. Had been hoping to do four per week but the reality has been more like two. However, the pile is slowly growing. Obtained a Zenith Height Gauge from eBay for $300. It's not in great condition and is broken (would pay two or three times that for a good one) but is exactly the right type for a Sopwith Pup. Having received it, I am pretty happy with my buy. The main altimeter mechanism (internal) seems to be in perfect condition and working order. What I need to fix is the external paintwork (very do-able) and one small gear part internally (will be harder, but is not a particularly complicated thing and am sure I can track one down). Talked some more to Kermit Weeks during the EAA Board meetings and he is convinced I should shoot for a 80hp Le Rhone.

Found an interesting website, a technical college in Dallas is building a Pup replica. Some useful info here. http://www.aimschool.com/?cat=5 This comment on their blog resonates: "Students are getting tired of ribs. 104 nose/false ribs, 48 main ribs, 20 trailing ribs, and 28 unique ribs!!"

Here's another excellent video from the EAA Hints for Homebuilders series. This is one of the first videos we made and I saw this about 2 months ago. Have been using exactly this techniquie to bend the capstrips on my ribs, with one minor exception - - rather than soaking the wood for 24 hours, I have been boiling up the kettle and soaking the wood in hot water for about an hour.

General update...

Talked to Joe Hauk in New Berlin, will go and visit his project some time soon after the EAA Board meetings. Acquired my first original part from eBay, a stopwatch that will go on the instrument panel. Will try and get some photos up soon. It's the "real deal" exactly the correct type for a Sopwith Pup with the Air Ministry stamp on the back. Looks to be in great condition but doesn't run, so maybe I will get it repaired. I have also picked up a Zenith altimeter from eBay, again of the correct type, although I know this one isn't in good condition. Am starting to think what my next task will be (beyond wing ribs). It will take me ages to chew through all the different ribs, and I feel the need for some variety in my work (also, I can only really do one rib per day).

Here's another good video from EAA's Hints for Homebuilders series. I am becoming very familiar with T-88 epoxy!

04/14/08 2:00

Missed a couple of weeks there due to flying down to Sun n Fun and back in the Cub... it was a long haul - - 2,800 miles and 32 flying hours! In my absence a new supply of wood has arrived from Aircraft Spruce, so I should be set for quite a while. Also Janet got some new shelving and laid out the hangar and tools in a much better way. 5 wing ribs completed to date, also I have made the pattern for the centre web of the "Type B" rib, of which there are 6. Tonight I prepared another 2 ribs worth of materials, will try and get them glued up later in the week. I received a CD of photos of the Pup in the San Diego Air & Space Museum, kindly sent to me by Peter Barker of Virginia, who kindly responded to my request via The Aerodrome forum (which is my main hang-out for building information). Slide show below - -

04/01/08 7:30

90th anniversary of the Royal Air Force today. Have completed a grand total of 4 ribs now, seems to be taking a couple of hours to complete each one, plus they each need at least a night clamped in the jig for the glue to set. Janet helped me make one on Sunday evening that turned out particularly well. T-88 glue is excellent for strength but pretty gloopy stuff to work with... I've learned that a syringe comes in very useful for dispensing it into the channel in the capstrip, sort of like icing a cake.

Visited the Weeks Hangar on Saturday to look at the Bleriot project. Got some good ideas and advice from Gary Buettner.

3/26/08 2:30


Hooray, finished my first wing rib! I showed my practice pieces to Timm who gave me some good advice on gluing. On Monday evening I glued up my first full rib. Found myself using about a dozen clamps as well as the jig, to get everything in nice and tight. Was away for a couple of days and came back this evening to pull it out. Had been worrying about having glued the rib to my jig but it came out without too much fuss. The tip of putting greaseproof paper down really worked well. Am pleased with the result... it looks & feels "right". Will have the experts look at it before declaring it usable, though. Now I need to get the production line running... only 45 more to go! I think they will take me a couple of hours each.

This is the video that gave me the idea about cams on the wing rib jig. It stars Timm Bogenhagen from the EAA staff who tells me he got it from Wayne Ison, designer of the Minimax.

3/23/08 17:00

Two steps forward, one step back...

After feeling that I'd made a lot of progress, last weekend ended in disappointment as I realised that I'd been working to incorrect information. The "full size wing rib" diagram on the plans was not in fact full size. It meaured 58 inches, when the chord is supposed to be 61.5 inches. There must have been some shrinkage in the plans copying process. It was (in hindsight) a stupid error not to have measured it before launching into my work...but, lesson learned. Apart from the capstrip, everything else I've made went into the scrap bin.

I was a bit depressed at first about throwing away so much work, but after a while it was a relief to think that I found the error as early as I did. Also, a lot of my work wasn't wasted - a lot of it is "thinking & working things out", that won't need to be repeated.

Played with the large plans copier at Kinkos and after some trial and error discovered that increasing the size to 102.2% got all the dimensions right. Spent most of Saturday making patterns for the front, middle & rear plywood sections. Shaping and sanding the lightening holes is no less laborious the second time around. But everything seemed to go a lot faster, and was helped by having a second copy of the full size wing rib that I could cut out and use.

Started making my wing rib jig today, and made quite a lot of progress with it. Next step will be to glue up my first rib. One of the EAA "Hints for Homebuilders" videos was really helpful in giving me an idea to use locking cams in the jig. These will work perfectly (I think).

Experimented with soaking and pre-bending my capstrip, also I have glued up a couple of sample pieces to start getting a feel for gluing (those discarded pieces in the scrap bin coming in useful...) Ordered a load more wood from Aircraft Spruce.

Paul Poberezny and Chuck Parnall stopped by this afternoon. Paul seemed satisfied with the quality of my work, which was comforting to hear. This week Paul put me in touch with a guy called Joe Hauk here in Wisconsin who is about 5 years into a Pup project. He sent me some photos and has done great work. Look forward to catching up with him at some point.

3/15/08 10:30

Did a couple of hours yesterday evening and most of the day today. Janet also gets credited with her first hour! This update is in photo format with captions:

3/13/08 2:00

Not a very productive couple of weeks... I went home to England last weekend so didn't get anything done. Did, however, have a good talk with Kermit Weeks, who has a couple of Pups that he's sent away to have restored. He says the Pup is a very nice flying aeroplane and thinks I should shoot for a 80hp Le Rhone, says they are obtainable, and it's as solid an engine as the rotaries ever got. Spent a couple of hours this evening after work continuing to "set up shop" - finished building my wood bench, assembled my drill press and mounted the table router properly on a base. The shop is pretty much done now so I will aim to make progress on the wing ribs at the weekend and take some photos for the first time.

3/1/08 6:00

Finished routing all 200 feet of capstrip and my arms are aching from using new muscles! Went pretty well, I was unhappy with perhaps 10 feet. It is interesting to compare the qualities of the different pieces of spruce... the tight-grained strips are very easy to work and I had no problems with them; much more trouble with pieces where the grain was space farther apart, the router was sometimes ripping the wood rather than cutting it cleanly. My attention now turns to the plywood webs. I made a plywood pattern for the nose web and used it to rout out a trial piece... came out OK. I am worrying a bit about how perfect and precise I need to be, not that that's a bad thing. It's helpful to go in the Museum and look at the uncovered aeroplanes (it's really helpful to look at the Curtiss Jenny), other examples of wing ribs in displays, etc to "calibrate" myself on what are acceptable standards.

2/28/08 12:00

Lots of progress! Spent 8hrs over the weekend continuing to "tool up" - - assembling tools and the like. It was good to spend some time in the hangar with music playing... listened to the classic old Salty Dog album "Every Dog Has Its Day" a couple of times. On Sunday morning Janet and I picked up a very nice old workbench that Paul Poberezny has given me. That was very kind of him, like so many others he's being very encouraging of my new endeavour. Did some practice with the scroll saw and table router on bits of scrap wood, and practiced soaking and bending some capstrip at home. Felt like a real homebuilder with pieces of spruce sitting in the bath, although Charlie Becker said I won't really have "made it" until I'm using the toilet to bend my wood! Visited the hangar on a couple of evenings this week and the really big news is that I have cut my first official piece of wood on the project... hooray, after 2 months and 40 hours of preparation the real work has begun!! 200 feet of capstrip and several birch ply boards arrived from Aircraft Spruce today, and I used the table router to cut a 3/16 wide and 1/16 deep notch in a 6 foot length of capstrip. Worked a treat, and the plywood fits the notch beautifully. Just 194 feet to go. Next step is to start making the plywood webs, hoping to make progress at the weekend. Talked to Jim during the week, he has joined the 1 1/2 Strutter group at East Fortune and thinks he can obtain a supply of trailing edge material from Bruntons of Musselburgh. Heard back from Roger Freeman in Texas who is creating me a quote for the metal fittings.

Webs

Just studied the plans and - for the record - I'll be needing 46 front webs, 40 Type A middle webs, 6 Type B middle webs, and 32 rear webs. 124 in total... that will be a lot of cutting-out!

2/17/08 7:00

The plans arrived yesterday from Replicraft. They are good quality (plus I got a copied set of factory drawings) so, the project is a "go"! "Tooling up" is now underway. I've ordered a workbench from Grizzly, birch ply and spruce capstrip from Aircraft Spruce, brass screws from a woodwork supplier and after spending time yesterday scoping routers, bandsaws, sanders etc in the local hardware stores, I bought them all today. Interesting, I've lived in Oshkosh for 7 years and yesterday was the first time I have been in "Menards" hardware store... and I saw 2 people in there wearing EAA baseball caps!

After all this waiting it will be good to actually start doing some project work.

The replica aircraft section of the Aerodrome forum is - by a long way - the most helpful community resource out there. It's full of useful information and there's a great group of people involved. Also, Charlie Becker has been working on some "video hints for homebuilders" that EAA will be putting online soon. He showed me a few, they will be extremely useful - - - reading books, articles and browsing around internet forums is great, but it's very helpful to be able to actually see a task being done.

A very nice Zenith altimeter showed up on ebay last week... I set up a max bid of $601 on through Auctionsniper... thought I had a chance but there was someone else that really wanted it, and I was outbid at $611. This would have been perfect for the Pup... however, there is plenty of time yet before I'll be needing instruments!

2/09/08 2:00

Another poor week... have been mega busy at work but not much to do on the project until the plans arive. I have, however, ordered a nice maple workbench from Grizzly along with some basic woodworking tools, clamps and glue. Have receieved a few emails from Jim who is researching the major wood pieces, and has hooked up with Tim Rayner about some castings.

I bid on eBay for an original gunsight from a WW1 aircraft Vickers MG... it went for 128 quid which was 77 more than I was prepared to pay.

2/3/08 3:00

Not a great week for progress on the project. I have been very busy at work. Anyway, the main news is that the Avro 504 plans arrived on Wednesday. They were very incomplete and poor quality reproductions. Within about 30 minutes of studying them, I had decided that a "reality check" was needed... it's going to be hard enough building a WW1 plane from scratch, do I need to be battling through a fundamental lack of information as well? So, after much head-scratching and looking around the internet etc etc I have landed on a Sopwith Pup. Main reasons for this are (a) excellent plans availability (both original plans and an excellent redrawn set by Jim Kiger)... (b) it's a proper fighter... (c) seemingly decent flying qualities... (d) much smaller than an Avro, better fit in the hangar! (e) good builder support network, there are several of them out there and quite a few people have already done CAD work on the Sopwith metal fittings (f) Jim McTaggart wants to build a Pup too, so we could share contacts etc. So there are a lot of good reasons to go in this direction, and only one big reason not to - it's a single seater. But, having mulled around on the Avro idea for the past month, I realise this isn't fundamentally a flying project, it's a building project. So, now I'm back waiting for plans to arrive from Replicraft. The Aircraft Spruce catalogue arrived so I'll have some fun with that. Alan offered help with the woodwork aspects which I plan to take him up on!

1/26/08 7:00

Went to look at the Bleriot project in the EAA Weeks hangar - - drew inspiration and it’s interesting how now I am looking at projects through different eyes, looking at construction details, the way they are building jigs and clamping things, etc. Went through the Grizzly catalogue (while the Packers were on TV losing the the Giants in the Superbowl semi-final) selecting various tools that I will need. Read Ron Wantajja’s book on Kitplane construction, very good overview of the subject, and some good technical details, lots of common sense advice. Watched instructional videos on the web about woodworking, use of tools etc, particularly routers. EAA should do videos like this. Messed around with various pieces of CAD software and did internet research on the whole issue of making metal fittings this way. There will be quite a learning curve on the software. Talked to Bauken about laser cutting of metal parts, but he strongly recommends water jet cutting as it won’t cause cracks to form in the metal. He explained to me the history of aircraft metals and why I’ll be using 4130 alloy steel. I am desperate for the plans to arrive!

1/19/08 6:00

Over the past 2 weeks I’ve continued to do internet research and reading of books. Got EAA’s manual on wooden aircraft construction, which was interesting and helpful, as have been the Tony Bingelis articles on the EAA Homebuilders HQ website. I realize why Bingelis is regarded so highly, his style is very clear & helpful. Acquired Windsock Datafile 28 on the Avro 504K which I’m sure will be consulted many times. Re-read Nigel Hamlin-Wright’s book. Ordered Aircraft Spruce catalogue. Researched glues. The Aerodrome forum is clearly going to be a major asset. I am officially watching the mail every day now until the plans arrive! Will continue to learn as much as I can until then. Enthusiasm is higher now than when I started, this has been very educational and a lot of fun so far. Already this project is giving me huge insight into homebuilding. My only concern is that the plans are of poor quality. I have shared with a select few people my intent to do this project. I’ve been greeted with great enthusiasm and encouragement, but I know that there are doubts about whether I will follow through and actually do this. That’s OK.

1/5/08 3:00

Joined WWI Aero and ordered Avro 504 plans. Joined the Aerodrome forum. Bookmarked about a dozen websites of interest. Sent a few emails. Rotec engines were very quick in replying and provided excellent information. Set up various standing searches on eBay for WW1 parts and other phrases that might be helpful. I’ve learned previously that this is a great way to keep an eye on rare items when they come up.