My Pou du Ciel project is moving a little slowly right now, as our spring money and time is being devoted to getting our grounds productive. Chickens, rabbits, alfalfa, oats, and a garden are the order of the day.
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Cleaned up glue on leading edge of rudder.
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Glued curved portion of rudder leading edge.
Trimmed extra gusset length, cleaned up extra glue.
Glued the first leading edge strip and its remaining gussets.
Had a little T-88 and a few minutes left from another task, so I glued a few gussets on. They'll help align the leading edge when I do it tomorrow.
Removed excess glue. Beveled leading edge strips and cut gussets.
Glued rudder ribs to spar. If I were doing it again, I would build the ribs in situ, as the book describes; my ribs are nice, but it was a pain to get them glued well and properly wetted.
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Beveled rear tips of ribs to receive laminated border. Marked positions of ribs for assembly. Marked position of hardwood blocks for later reference.
Glued rudder spar caps to blocks for mounting and tailwheel.
Made a simple jig to hold rudder spar caps and blocks in place for gluing.
Wasn't happy with my previous rudder spars, which didn't lay quite straight. Cut and shaped new ones.
Rebuilt wing rib jig. Screwed up a nosepiece.
Soaked and bent cap strips.
Ripped more cap strips.
Finished making rudder ribs.
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Made two more rudder ribs.
Routed away excess plywood and filed off excess glue. Glued another rib and cleaned that up too.
Cut a taper in the rudder spar caps.
Glued up a rudder rib the American way: under innumerable tiny lead weights.
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Built a rudder rib and found that the nails split the cap strips. I'll have to use weights.
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Made a dirt-simple jig for the rudder ribs and cut ply into strips for webs.
Ripped, cut, and shaped rudder spar caps.
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Bent a couple scrap cap strips to build a test rib.
Seems that I will in fact have to soak or steam upper rib cap strips. Built a jig to put them in after I do so.
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Continued ripping wood for rib cap strips.
Cut rib cap strip material to thickness. Not yet cut to width.
Fitted baggage compartment floor and glued support cross-piece. Adjusted fit of seat back members.
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Started fitting supports for baggage compartment floor and the floor itself.
Fitted seat back members. Squared and aligned rear longerons.
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Joined rear point with steel fitting. (Those are temporary screws in the picture.)
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Cut tailpost. Cut steel for lower tailpost bracket.
Set fuselage up to align rear point.
Screwed in the seat bottom and glued on the stiffeners.
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Cut hole in seat bottom for stick using a Dremel circle cutter. It's a much better tool than my circle cutting compass - faster and easier on the hands.
Finished cutting lyre branch and attempted to fit it. Cut the part that fits between the plywood layers so badly it couldn't be repaired.
Printed (at Staples) a lyre pattern, marked it on the maple board, and started cutting before light got too bad.
Drafted out a lyre that should fit. Will print pattern.
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Fitted a seat bottom. Need to cut hole and add reinforcing members.
Removed excess glue, checked angle of members to which lyre fastens, cleaned up a bit with file.
Because I glued the bottom cross-piece to the wrong side of the seat, I added a seat support on the correct side. Also a shim to level a slight misalignment of one side bar. Also cut a seat bottom - too small.
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Cleaned up a lot of excess glue.
Removed fuselage from jig and cleaned up some excess glue.
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Glued the rear under-seat bulkhead
Glued reinforcing circles, middle cross piece of seat back, rear bulkhead lower member, front bulkhead, and rear bulkhead top member.
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Fitted new front bulkhead. Glued lower member of front bulkhead, next member with gussets, and lower member of seat back.
Finished fitting all under-seat members.
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Cut lightening holes in front bulkhead. Fit new rhomboid piece and gussets to match. Measured for final under-seat bulkhead.
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Bought 6mm okoume ply for seat bottom and flocking for epoxy.
Fitted two more cross-members and cut front bulkhead to fit.
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Fitted top seat back ring. Measured for front bulkhead. Fitted lower member of unusual section to accommodate error in joining frontmost verticals.
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Cut and fitted reinforcement ring, middle crosspiece, and rhomboid lower member behind seat.
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Glued and nailed back of seat in place.
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Fitted seat back and cut lightening holes. Not very satisfied with my cutting compass.
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Determined dimensions for seat back and cut to shape.
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Got the fuselage sides squared up on the workbench. You can't argue with a couple actual squares nailed to a level workbench!
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Tried to use cables and turnbuckles to square fuselage, but couldn't get it stable without using too much tension. Got useful experience with Nicopress tool, though.
Found I had missed my measurement the first time. Started from scratch and got it right. Cut practice scarf joint with file preparing for when I fit rear plywood.
Started jigging up fuselage sides on leveled table.
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Checked table straightness and laid out alignment lines for joining fuselage sides.
Cleaned up excess glue with sanding blocks, chisel, plane, jackknife --- whatever works!
Sharpened a compass' legs to a knife-edge and a sharp point, respectively, using a grinder. Cut a couple holes in scrap plywood. It worked pretty well.
Fitted and glued the last bits before joining the sides: the final under-seat flange (one of which was made by my eldest daughter), the hardwood reinforcement behind and below the pilot's seat, and the tapered reinforcements at the sides of the cockpit top.
Fitted under-seat flanges, glued and nailed them.
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Cut tapered reinforcements for top longeron at cockpit using table saw and sander.
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Trimmed inside cockpit panels with the router. Will file landing-gear cutout to fit gear spring when it is shaped and ready.
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Purchased a piece of maple milled to 1×2⅜×60 to serve as a landing gear spring.
Sealed enclosed areas around inside-cockpit side panels and glued and nailed them into place.
Cut and fitted the plywood sheeting in the front of the cockpit. Also helped my 9-year-old fit a small member to support the under-seat bulkhead.
Cleaned up excess glue on landing-gear pads. Practiced flush-cutting plywood on scrap, then trimmed edges of flank flush with router. Drilled hole in flank for rudder cable pulley and landing-gear spring, then cut to shape with router.
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Cut openings for gear spring in pads and glued them in place. Used a chisel to clean up a couple places where I got overenthusiastic with the glue spreader last time.
Glued up second pad, fitted and glued tapered reinforcements (two of which were made my my daughter, 8 years old, and my son, 5 years old).
Glued up the pads to support the Sky Pup-style landing gear.
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Glued up blocking for under seat on each side. Cut to shape, fitted, and glued.
Fitted and glued second flank
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Removed the nailing strip from the second flank scarf joint and traced the pattern for the second flank from the first. The Pou-du-Ciel may not succeed at killing me, but it drew first blood; the nailing strip sprung back and cut my ring finger.
Cut and glued the scarf joint for the right flank.
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Sorry for the quality of the last couple photos — I replaced my phone, and the new camera is not great. I'll use something else in the future.
Glued the second side over the first.
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Fitted remaining members over the first side, putting wax paper under each joint.
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Fitted longerons and some members for the second side, building them atop The first side.
Scarfed longerons for second side.
Removed fuselage side from jig and cleaned up some glue. Only a small amount of jig came off with the fuselage.
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Glued and nailed the flank to the fuselage members in the jig.
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Cut flank to shape. Used a 580mm radius for the curve of the underside of the nose.
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Tried to use power planer to remove excess glue from flank scarf joint and instead removed a line of the outer ply. Cut piece off behind joint and fitted and glued a new scarf joint.
Glued scarf joint for flank.
Worked on marking out and scarfing the plywood for the left flank. Ready to glue.
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