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!

Sunday, May 7, 2017

More delays, but finally back to work.

Friends,

Work and personal obligations have just been non-stop lately. Being able to work on the project has been an impossibility most days. In the last month, I've managed a little shop cleanup and organization, and managed to get all my parts in .063" rough cut. It took about 6 hours total to lay out all these parts onto .063" stock. Later today, I hope to get them filed/sanded down to finish size, and maybe even formed (most of them are flat pieces anyway). The upper fuselage channel is going to be the biggest challenge. It's nearly 4' long and has 3 bends along the length! Here are a few pictures of the layout of parts and the rough cut pieces:

Hard to see with the glare, but the upper fuselage doublers and other parts are nested in this layout:

Although I have electric shears that work well, the jigsaw was better suited to cut out all these parts nested so closely together:

Lots of little parts laid out in close proximity to minimize waste material. If you don't have to remake too many parts, a 1/2-sheet (4' x 6') of material is plenty to do the whole plane.

Larger parts rough cut, to be finished on band saw and belt sander. A few of the smaller parts still need to be separated from each other:

Cheers!

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