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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Cleaned up excess glue on joints in preparation for adding plywood skin. Cut practice scarf joints in craft plywood to prepare for scarfing plywood skin.
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Glued the fuselage members for the left side in the jig.
Built part of 1400mm rib jig.
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Ripped spruce for wing ribs.
Ordered a safety harness so I can determine how to fit it safely before fuselage progresses too far.
Fit fuselage members to jig, including scarf joint for longeron.
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Drew 1400mm-chord NACA 23112 on drafting vellum for rib jig pattern.
Finished ripping the fuselage wood. Found that there are no sufficient lengths of flawless wood for longerons. Built simple scarf jig for tablesaw and made practice scarf joints in preparation to scarf longerons.
Wrote a script to scale airfoil coordinates to any specified chord, and regularize the x-coordinates to a given minimum integer spacing, eliminating those points which do not significantly contribute to an accurate outline.
Ripped longer pieces to dimensions for the fuselage from a piece too long and heavy for me to control easily (thanks to my wife and Minister of Finance, who supplied both muscles and finesse).
Built a wing rib jig based on a professionally-printed profile. Measured and found it to be 30cm short. Discarded and generated correct coordinate set based on data from airfoiltools.com. Will plot by hand and try again.
Built a jig for the fuselage side on my workbench. Cost is for scrap wood.
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Realized that my wing diagram failed to take into account plywood thicknesses in the spar webs, among other problems. Redrafted it more accurately.
Succeeded in laying out the flank correctly the first time, once I realized the correct length of the rear side.
Remembered the article on HM-14 flank dimensions from Pou-Guide, which explains why I was about 3mm short in vertical distance above the lower longeron in my earlier attempts to lay out the fuselage jig. The 310mm measurement indicated by M. Mignet should actually be closer to 313mm, which accounts for most of the error.
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Failed twice to draw out the flank on my workbench for jig-building to an acceptable level of accuracy. I'll try again tomorrow, and if that fails, I'll try using (x,y) coordinates instead of angle-distance pairs.
Started ripping spruce for fuselage, with a shorter section separated from the rest by an area of bad grain.
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Adjusted tablesaw to make accurate-enough cuts to rip fuselage members and wing rib cap strips.
Practiced making scarf joints in scrap plywood. Finally arrived at a method of fitting reliably with the power planer. (Freehand? — total fail.)
Selected and bought Sitka spruce for fuselage longerons and members.
Selected and bought spruce sufficient for ribs and most, if not all, spar caps.
Built a couple of sturdy, square, level workbenches, 8'x4' each.
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Ordered mahogany plywood, steel, and hardware for fuselage from Aircraft Spruce & Specialty.
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Made CAD drawings of fuselage and wings, to check my understanding of dimensions from Le Sport de l'Air. Made provisional weight and balance checks, to a poor approximation that that looks encouraging for being able to achieve a weight less than 115kg with appropriate balance. Engine mount will probably look a little ridiculous to achieve proper balance with a very light engine, though!
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Additional work on translation of Le Sport de l'Air, translating sections on engines and engine mounting. Abandoned some as irrelevant to safe modern practice.
Laid out rib truss members for 1400mm ribs after the HM.293 design, enlarged and altered to preserve HM.14 spar widths.
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Wrote a Python script to generate actual-size PDF files of airfoils with capstrip dimensions marked out for rib layout. Printed full size at Office Depot.
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Laid out plywood fuselage pieces on 5 scaled-down 61x61" sheets. Left enough excess to produce gussets and reinforcements specified in plans.
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Made a website to serve as a build log for my own reference and that of others, as well as to prove to a DAR that I did the work if I fail to meet Part 103.
Laid out one side of a mockup for the cabin in cheap ¼" plywood.
Drafted out front and back wing to determine rib chord and spacing with 22% front spar centerline location.
Drafted side and top views of the fuselage, 1936 version, to determine geometry.
Translated construction portions of Le Sport de l'Air from French to English. Cost is for printing.
