Exciting Announcement: I got invited to be on a podcast!

Friends,

I've spent considerable time working on my YouTube production quality (still a long way to go). I want to make the content more watchable and exciting, but all in the hopes that the information I present is clear and easily digestible for fellow builders and enthusiasts. I've also been working on my keywords, titles and descriptions to make the information more easily located for other builders. In the last several months, that seems to have paid off! My subscriber list is growing every day, and there is a lot more feedback/discussion in the comments section.

One of the results of the increased exposure is that I was asked to be on the Evadot.com podcast, hosted by Michael Doornbos! Mr. Doornbos is a fellow Zenith builder working on his own 750 Cruzer kit project. In the podcast we talk about our own projects, but also general aspects of experimental aviation and building airplanes in your garage. You can check out the episode here:

Evadot Podcast - Ep. 104: Building Flying Machines In Your Garage

Also be sure to check out Mr. Doornbos' YouTube channel, where he chronicles, among other things, his 750 Cruzer kit build!

I have a lot more pictures and video content coming, so stay tuned!

Cheers!

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!

Why I chose the Corvair engine conversion for my Zenith STOL CH 750

Friends,

As a follow-up to "Why I chose the Zenith STOL CH 750," I thought I'd go into some detail about why I chose a Chevrolet Corvair engine conversion for my project. The first part of the video mostly about why I chose the Corvair specifically. The second part of the video is somewhat about the Corvair, but also details a lot about automotive engine conversion considerations. So, if you are interested in my reasoning for the Corvair engine choice, or if you would like more information on what is involved with choosing an automotive engine conversion, check out my videos below:

Why I chose a Corvair engine conversion - Part 1:

Why I chose a Corvair engine conversion - Part 2:

Why I chose the STOL CH 750

Friends,

Almost every aircraft builder is asked at some point why he or she chose a specific design to build. It's certainly a fair question, and one I'm always happy to answer. However, if you're building a Zenith STOL CH 750 nowadays, you'll invariably be asked why you are not building a Zenith 750 Cruzer instead. Further, after maybe giving some additional answers, some folks will even tell you that you should be building a Cruzer instead. I've often found that interesting at best, and annoying at worst. Who decides what airplane is best for me? I do!

If you would like to know more about why I specifically chose the STOL CH 750, and why I would still choose that design if I had to choose today, check out the video:

So many delays, I made a video about dealing with them!

Friends,

As noted in my last blog post, I have experienced more than my fair share of delays and setbacks in the last 12 months. I figure that other builders may experience similar delays over the years it takes for us to finish our projects. Thus, I created a video about how to persevere in the face of such delays, and how I maintain at least some progress when it feels like you're not getting anything done on the project!

Delays, delays and more delays!

Friends,

No exciting content in this update. I just wanted to throw out a quick post about my lack of activity lately. I recently had the flu and one of our household pets was very ill for a few weeks (and ultimately is no longer with us). Shortly after that, my wife had emergency surgery, so I was taking care of her for about a week. In the last month, I only managed a few hours of work on the elevator. In addition, I'm getting our newly acquired travel trailer ready for this year's camping season.

I managed to acquire some new welding accessories and tooling to help with the 4130 frame and fuel tanks. Mainly, I upgraded to a "standard" style foot pedal with some additional tooling. The stock pedal on my AHP AlphaTig 200X left much to be desired. I also added a couple more TIG finger protectors, a clear Furick cup for the torch (this will give more visibility when welding the 4130 in tight places) and a Lagesse Square.

At any rate, I have the elevator skins completely match-drilled to the skeleton, and I'm working on the elevator trim tab attachment (pictures to come soon). 

The last 12 months have been the year of setbacks for sure! I only managed about 250 hours of construction from April 2016 to March 2017....about half of where I should be. All kinds of things just ate up my personal time in the last 12 months, from home improvement/repairs, to injuries, to illnesses, to an unexpectedly very busy holiday season...you name it! I'm hoping things settle down a bit in the coming months, though I may be building a garden shed to free up some room in the garage, and I still having a camper wiring project to complete. At the very least, I hope I don't have to deal with as many illnesses and injuries. 250 hours is a pittance!

Cheers!

Working on the Elevator

Friends,

The last couple weeks have seen some progress. I was able to get the elevator skins bent properly (working on a video about those), and started drilling the skins. I like to pre-drill the skins so that I have pilot holes that allow me to see the center line of the ribs/spars underneath. This is similar to how Zenith used to ship their kits before they started CNC match-drilling everything. There are ways to drill the skins and ribs blind, but I prefer being able to visually ensure the ribs are in alignment. Plus, with the pilot holes drilled, I generally don't have to worry about the bits wandering.

However, if you use this method, you absolutely must ensure that you've measured your rib stations onto the skins properly. Somehow, I'd managed to locate a rivet line about 3/8" offset from one of the rivet stations. I think I accidentally had the tape measure hooked on something off the edge of the skin, but I don't know for sure. Maybe I just measured wrong. It was a duplicate measurement to the bottom side of the skin, and the exact same mirrored measurements for the co-pilot's side rear skin. It was just the top rivet line of the one side that I'd messed up. I'm going to re-make the skin and use it as a template to pilot hole the new one (without using the bad rivet line, of course). So it'll add an hour or so to the elevator (and scrap the original skin), but I'd rather take care of it now than just fill the holes with rivets.

Elevator Right and Left side Trailing Edge Skins:

Homemade gauge for checking the bend angle:

Elevator Nose Skins roll-formed manually with a 2x4:

 

Test layout of skins:

Center overlap of rear skins for strength:

Rear skins cleco'd to the spar and ribs:

Another thing to which you have to pay close attention is the rivet pitch and size specified in the plans. The overlapping skins in the center get drilled for A5 rivets at a pitch of 25. I missed that part on the plans, and accidentally drilled them to 40 pitch, which is what the rest of the elevator takes. I compensated by doubling the pitch to 20, with only results in an extra rivet on the front and rear rows, but it also means I have to remake the upper and lower control horns for the elevator to be able to use the existing rivet holes to mount the horns. With the 40 pitch, the rivets fall in slightly the wrong position, causing there not to be enough flange material on the horns. I'll remake the horns with longer flanges to solve that problem.