About The Project:

The airplane is a home-built, scratch-built Zenith CH 750 STOL. Building from plans/blueprints is a challenging way to build an airplane, since most of the parts you use to build it are not prefabricated. I chose the Zenith CH 750 STOL for its rugged design, its STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) characteristics and its aluminum construction. Zenith Aircraft Company has designed this airplane so that it can be built from scratch or from a kit by the average person. They provide excellent technical support for both kit and scratch builders. In addition, I'll be installing a 1965 Chevrolet Corvair 164 cid horizontally opposed, air cooled, 6-cylinder engine, with special conversion parts to make it suitable for airplane duty. This is what the airplane will look like when I'm done, although I'll have a different paint scheme:

Follow my progress below!

Monday, November 9, 2015

The Starting Point: Part 1 - Tools

So building an aluminum aircraft from scratch requires a few tools (well, a lot of tools, actually). Here's a relatively short list:

  • Sheet metal bending brake 
  • Band saw
  • Belt, spindle and disc sanders
  • Table saw
  • Drill press
  • Router
  • Cordless and/or pneumatic drills
  • Rivet guns (hand and pneumatic)
  • Various clamps, jigs and other holding fixtures
  • Bench Vise (a sizable, good quality one)
  • Hammers and mallets
  • Files
  • Metal snips/shears
  • Clecos (temporary rivets)
  • and many many more...
Some of these tools you can actually build or modify from existing tools. Many of the tools are for woodworking, but can also be used on soft aluminum. However, you have plenty of woodworking to do (Wait? I said this is an aluminum airplane, right?). Much of the tooling consists of wooden form blocks, which you use to form the aluminum sheet into the complex shapes required for the plane.

Really, the process starts with examining your blueprints, but having a running inventory of the tools you already own is a good starting point.
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