Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 22:41:13 -0500 (EST) From: pathways Subject: Re: Cozy MK IV Marc, My background is computer science and I design large computer systems. I also am an instructor for the Dale Carnegie Course. I'm not sure what I may be able to add to the group other than personal experience from my project. However I am interested in being put on your list. As far as putting the four layers of cloth over the longerons, good luck. Mine came out fine with continually checking the layup each hour until it curred. The double longerons are not perfect. There are just too many complex angles. I repeatedly pushed the cloth in place. I plan to just fill any bubbles with resin. I am peel plying everything I do. It has already saved some time. It also puts a nice finish to the inside. My 5 year old son is working with me on this project. In addition to building the Cozy I have built two spaceships, a 6 car train, a truck or two, and some other miscellaneous toys. He really enjoys working on his project while I work on mine. ....Marty Kansky SPEAK@USIT.NET Date: Thu, 13 Apr 95 14:10:09 PDT From: "Michael Antares" Subject: Chapter 5 I just finished chap 5 with no significant problems but did have a small issue which I thought might be good to pass on, not just for itself but because it illustrated a point (at least to me) which I think is important to always keep in mind. My wife and I started glassing the fuselage insides after dinner one evening last week. I was somewhat relying on Nat's "3 to 4 hour" estimate of how long it would take. The glassing actually went very well (it was the first large area glassing I had done). But it was close to midnite when that part of it was finished. It was then necessary to install the upper longerons and in so doing I carefully followed Nat's instructions of keeping the longerons spaced 7/8 inch from each other. A couple of days later however when I started installing the lower longerons and once again carefully following his instructions of remeasuring using figure 5, that I discovered that the lower longerons were beginning to depart from the edge of the foam as I neared the rear and ended up with almost a quarter of an inch of overhang. Upon investigating I found that although the upper longerons had been spaced correctly, I hadn't used spacers that extended down to the foam and the foam had sprung inwards at the rear so that the upper longerons were not flush with the foam. I don't think I would have made this mistake if I hadn't been as tired as I was. The mistake was readily corrected by adding a strip of foam along the bottom for the distance that the longerons were overhanging but the lessons I learned were two: 1) check, check and then check again and 2) stay alert! Another lesson which I thought I already knew was not to ever try and second guess Nat. If I had made the spacers as the drawing showed, I also wouldn't have made the mistake. Michael Antares Software/Hardware Systems Engineering mantares@crl.com Santa Rosa, California From: Lee Devlin Subject: Chapter 5 fuselage curvature Date: Wed, 26 Apr 95 9:28:50 MDT Did anyone else happen to notice that the coordinates that Nat gives in Chapter 5 for jig FJA (which determine the curvature of the fuselage for around 3 feet back from f22) don't really fall on a smooth curve? I plotted them out and noticed some minor 'wiggles' and flat sections where the distances point to point did not increase monotonically. I've input them into a CAD system and even on an 8.5" x 11" plot, I could see the "mathematical impurity ;-)" of this curvature. I've been tempted to 'correct' this curvature to make it aesthetic more pleasing but it resulted in some portions of the new curvature being off by about 1/4" from the original coordinates. My method for correction was to find a % change over a span of 38" that increases monotonically a distance of 4.5" and came up with 7.569% between 2" centers (it's a compound interest problem). It looks better, but I don't know what problems I'd be asking for when I got a little further on in the building process if I went ahead and did it. Perhaps this imperfection gets 'filtered' out by the masonite anyway so I may be worrying about nothing. Any suggestions? Lee Devlin leed@gr.hp.com From: Marc J. Zeitlin Subject: Chapter 5 fuselage curvature Date: Wed, 26 Apr 95 11:39:42 EDT Lee D. writes; > >Did anyone else happen to notice that the coordinates that Nat gives in >Chapter 5 for jig FJA (which determine the curvature of the fuselage for >around 3 feet back from f22) don't really fall on a smooth curve? I >plotted them out and noticed some minor 'wiggles' and flat sections >where the distances point to point did not increase monotonically. I've >input them into a CAD system and even on an 8.5" x 11" plot, I could see >the "mathematical impurity ;-)" of this curvature. I noticed this when making the jigs and wondered about it, but..... >............................ I've been tempted to >'correct' this curvature to make it aesthetic more pleasing but it >resulted in some portions of the new curvature being off by about 1/4" >from the original coordinates. My method for correction was to find a % >change over a span of 38" that increases monotonically a distance of >4.5" and came up with 7.569% between 2" centers (it's a compound >interest problem). It looks better, but I don't know what problems I'd >be asking for when I got a little further on in the building process if >I went ahead and did it. This is pretty impressive. You probably wouldn't run into any major problems (maybe a little extra cutting or a little extra material when adding the strakes, but........ >Perhaps this imperfection gets 'filtered' out by the masonite anyway >so I may be worrying about nothing. Basically, that's what I saw. Once I screwed the masonite to the jigs, and glued the foam on the masonite, everything looked pretty smooth. >Any suggestions? Do it your way. See what happens. There's no real structure that attaches later that has real aerodynamic significance (easy for me to say to YOU, huh? :-) ) The turtledeck and canopy can easily flex the amounts you're describing, and you cut the foam for the strakes, so you can do what you want. It will be interesting to compare your shape to the others. Or don't. It worked OK for me. -- Marc J. Zeitlin E-Mail: marcz@an.hp.com Date: Fri, 28 Apr 95 16:31:02 PDT From: "Michael Antares" Subject: Chap 5 I just finished chapter 5 a couple of weeks ago. I used a 36 inch steel ruler turned on edge to connect the points. I guessed that evened out any offsets because I ended up with a smooth curve--actually there was no way NOT to end up with a smooth curve because the ruler wouldn't bend except smoothly--in fact that was why I used it. It makes a good french curve for those of you who have used them. Michael Antares Software/Hardware Systems Engineering mantares@crl.com Santa Rosa, California Date: Mon, 01 May 95 09:17:52 est From: "Phillip Johnson" Subject: Chapter 5 fuselage curvature Lee Devlin writes: > Perhaps this imperfection gets 'filtered' out by the masonite > anyway so I may be worrying about nothing. > Any suggestions? Yes the masonite does some filtering, but the longerons seem to control the shape and they seem to be filtered more than the masonite. The biggest discontinuity is at the join between sheets of PVC foam. Also the seat back is nominally straight so a straight region is necessary at this point. Mine does not seem to show and by the time the strake is in place I think it becomes invisible. I haven't noticed it on any finished aircraft. Phil Johnson From: Lee Devlin Subject: Chapter 5 foam Date: Mon, 8 May 95 22:25:46 MDT While cutting foam today, I found out that Wicks had sent me the wrong foam for Chapter 5. Being relatively new to the homebuilding game, I found out sort of by accident. It all unraveled during a trigonometry error that I could not resolve. The Chapter 5 plans call out for two pieces of 3/4x24x48 and 1 piece of 1x24x48 foam. Without thinking, I figured that the two identical pieces of foam in the box must be the ones from which I cut the fuselage side spacers so I proceeded to cut a piece to fit on the bottom of the side fuselage. After I cut it to the 45 degree angle which Nat recommends, for kicks, I thought I'd set up the saw and cut it to 18 deg. which I calculated to be the angle of the bevel on the foam on the bottom of the fuselage. Instead of leaving .7" of flat, it left nothing. I checked my calculator again. Then I realized, 'Hey, this isn't 3/4" thick, it's 1" thick.' That's right, Wicks, the infallible supplier of aircraft parts mixed up the Clark foam and urethane foam quantities, and had it not been for my anal approach to building the aircraft, I may have ruined about $100 in material and quite a few hours of labor. I now am very familiar with the 'look and feel' of low density Clark vs. low density urethane foams. I will call them tomorrow and see what they do about this grievous error, and my standards will be quite high, based on the propensity of some in this group to wax rhapsodical about the superiority of this particular vendor :-). Another thing that's got me scratching my head is why the 1"x24"x48" urethane foam is included in the Chapter 5 material list at all. I've read Chapter 5 about 10 times and can't find a single reference to the 1" urethane foam. After looking through page 5 Chapter 2, it appears to only be used for the spar. What is it doing in Chapter 5? And not only is it _in_ Chapter 5, its quantity was actually doubled in Newsletter 34. The only way for me to find it is to send this message to you 30 other Cozy builders and after I hit the 'return' key, it will jump off the page and hit me between the eyes. And in case it doesn't, please respond anyway. Thanks, Lee Devlin From: Lee Devlin Subject: Re: Chapter 5 foam Date: Tue, 9 May 95 10:12:43 MDT Michael wrote: > When it jumps off the page and hits you in the eye, let ME know because I've > finished chapter 5 and I still have that piece of foam! I have assumed that > it will be needed somewhere and sometime but so far I'm still looking at it. > I'm about 3/4 through chapter 6 and supposing that it will be needed to > finish the bottom although I haven't read through the instructions > thoroughly enough to know for sure. I called Nat today after reading your response just to make sure we weren't missing something and he told me that that foam is used in a lot of places for contouring and he believed it was included in Chapter 5 to make the forms for the electrical conduits. Urethane would be more appropriate for this than Clark, however, the plans do call for the .75" Clark foam on which to shape the conduits. He also thought it would be used for filling in around the NACA scoop which I believe doesnt' occur until Chapter 7. The fact that it was increased from a 24"x24" sheet to a 24"x48" sheet in Newsletter 34 really through me off because it gave me the impression that not only was it required to complete Chapter 5 but builders were finding they just didn't have enough of it. Lee Devlin Date: 13 Jul 1995 09:15:27 U From: "Judd Stewart" Subject: Control Stick Foam Removal- People, The plans instruct you to remove 1/4" of the 3/8" fuselage side foam for hand clearance. After the outside is glassed is the area still rigid or does it oil can from the outside? Judd Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 12:35:26 -0400 From: SidLloyd@aol.com Subject: Re: Control Stick Foam Removal- In a message dated 95-07-13 12:25:07 EDT, Judd_Stewart@cpqm.saic.com (Judd Stewart) writes: >The plans instruct you to remove 1/4" of the 3/8" fuselage side foam for hand >clearance. After the outside is glassed is the area still rigid or does it >oil >can from the outside? > >Judd Mine's rigid. Sid From: Marc J. Zeitlin Subject: Re: Control Stick Foam Removal- (fwd) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 95 13:09:40 EDT Sid L. replied: >(Judd Stewart) writes: > >>The plans instruct you to remove 1/4" of the 3/8" fuselage side foam >>for hand clearance. After the outside is glassed is the area still >>rigid or does it oil can from the outside? >> >>Judd > >Mine's rigid. > >Sid Same here. -- Marc J. Zeitlin E-Mail: marcz@an.hp.com Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 11:11:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Eric Westland Subject: Re: Control Stick Foam Removal- On 13 Jul 1995, Judd Stewart wrote: > People, > > The plans instruct you to remove 1/4" of the 3/8" fuselage side foam for hand > clearance. After the outside is glassed is the area still rigid or does it oil > can from the outside? > > Judd > > > Mine is fine as well, however, after installing the controls per plans, there seems as if there would be plenty of room even without the foam removed. Eric Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 22:09:17 -0700 From: johnw@daktel.com Subject: Re: Control Stick Foam Removal- (fwd) Sid L. replied: >(Judd Stewart) writes: > >>The plans instruct you to remove 1/4" of the 3/8" fuselage side foam >>for hand clearance. After the outside is glassed is the area still >>rigid or does it oil can from the outside? >> >>Judd > >Mine's rigid. > >Sid >Same here. Mine,s also rigid. John W Date: 7 Aug 1995 08:48:33 -0600 From: "Scott Mandel" Subject: Electrial Conduit Chap 5 Subject: Time: 7:53 AM OFFICE MEMO Electrial Conduit Chap 5 Date: 8/7/95 Did anyone else notice the electrical conduit installed in chapter 5 page 5 of the Cozy Mark IV is too large? It's made from .75 thick clark foam. This gives it a height of almost .8 inches . When it is installed with the clark foam on either side it 's top is above the longerons by about .1 of an inch. The instructions say to sand the area flat prior to applying the 6 layers of BID. This will take the top of the conduit right off. I talked to Nat, he said he didn't remember this being a problem. He said it was okay to have a bump in the layup. Does anyone know if I'm missing the boat here? No one I've talked to has had this problem. I've already done a fix, but I just want to know if I've screwed up something that has caused this problem. Date: 7 Aug 1995 12:43:02 -0600 From: "Scott Mandel" Subject: Fuselage Sides Chap 5 Subject: Time: 12:31 PM OFFICE MEMO Fuselage Sides Chap 5 Date: 8/7/95 Here's my first contribution to the mailing list. I hope this may help some new builder making their fuselage sides. - For various reason (mostly because I screwed up cutting my first two jigs for FJA) my upper longerons did not have enough curvature. They didn't meet the foam in the middle (off by a half to three quarters of an inch). - Here's what I did to fix it and here's how well it worked. - I allowed the first two inside lay-ups of UNI to cure. I peel plyed the entire inside. I sanded the positions for the upper longerons, put nails through the longerons for placement. Floxed all mating surfaces, and weighted down the longerons with bricks during cure. I also did all the placement for the lower longerons to insure that everything would have a perfect fit if everything stayed in place after I removed the bricks and nails from the upper longerons. - The next day I held my breath and removed all the nails, bricks and clamps. - The result was perfect fuselage sides. Even after removing the sides from the molds they held their shape. I hope this helps someone else because this is something I worried about for several days. - This weekend I'm planning to mate the side with the bulk heads, chapter 6, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This is my first project. I never even built model airplanes as a kid. So my biggest contribution to this mailing list will probably be more of here's how I fixed this. - I started reading the cozy mail last week. I've already hit many problems that I've read in the mail. The mail list has helped me allot. I make a plea for other builders to write their problems and fixes here. It would be a great help to me, and I'm sure to others. Please don't be afraid to put your mistakes down in writing for the world to see. I'm sure no one is dumber than me. - Personal Note: To the contributor who said they were having problems understanding many of the instructions I can sympathize. I read, re-read, read again, read it one more time, go to work finish a step re-read and then slap my head and say Oh! that's what he meant and try to fix it. To make you feel even better, I have several advanced degrees, and I still walk in from the garage half the time saying, "God am I an idiot". :-) Date: 4 Oct 1995 07:53:47 -0600 From: "Scott Mandel" Subject: Electrical Conduit Subject: Time: 7:48 AM OFFICE MEMO Electrical Conduit Date: 10/4/95 When I matched my firewall to my fuselage in chapter six I noticed the electrical conduit would not match up. This was really frustrating. I contacted several builders who also said they had the same problem. I contacted Nat, but he doesn't think there is anything wrong in the plans so I'm putting this out as a warning to anyone building the electrical conduit. Before you do all that work in chapter 5 try and match it up with your firewall. My conduit fell right in the middle of those blind screws. From: Lee Devlin Subject: Re: Electrical Conduit Date: Wed, 4 Oct 95 11:42:15 MDT Scott wrote: > When I matched my firewall to my fuselage in chapter six I noticed the > electrical conduit would not match up. This was really frustrating. I > contacted several builders who also said they had the same problem. > I contacted Nat, but he doesn't think there is anything wrong in the plans > so I'm putting this out as a warning to anyone building the electrical > conduit. Before you do all that work in chapter 5 try and match it up > with your firewall. My conduit fell right in the middle of those blind > screws. I was warned about this before mounting the electrical conduit. Part of the problem is that if you assume that the conduit is parallel with the upper longeron, it will intersect the firewall rudder bracket. I matched the temporary firewall up with the fuselage sides before gluing the electrical conduit in place and found that it needed to be installed at a slight angle to hit its hole in the firewall. The bottom of the conduit needs to be within 1/2" of the top of the lower longeron. If anyone else noticed this problem, or if you followed the instructions and did not encounter it, please email me and I'll make up a list for Nat and send it to him. So far, Scott is the 4th person I know of that has encountered it. Perhaps some builders used the firewall to check the positions of the upper and lower longerons along with LWX and marked the necessary position for the conduit at the same time and averted the problem. This could explain why some builders have the problem and others don't. Lee Devlin From: Lee Devlin Subject: More on Electrical Conduit Date: Fri, 6 Oct 95 11:54:45 MDT As some of you know, I have input the bulkheads into a CAD system to make my templates. They are avialable from Marc's WWW page. During the recent discussion on the misplacement of the electrical conduit, I decided to measure the distance from the top of the upper longeron to the top of the electrical conduit on my firewall CAD drawing. This distance came out to 14.7". In the chapter 5 plans, it calls for cutting the channel and mounting the conduit at 14.5" from the upper longeron. This normally seems like it should not cause a problem, however, the mounting bracket for the rudder pulley is supposed to be flush with the top of the conduit hole. It's surprising that such a small mismatch of the conduit with its hole can be so noticeable. I don't think it really causes any problems other than eliminating about 20% of the electrical conduit opening. I'm going to send Nat a printout of my measurement and suggest he consider making a correction to Chapter 5 in the newsletter. Lee Devlin Date: 6 Oct 1995 14:54:35 -0600 From: "Scott Mandel" Subject: Placement of Conduit Subject: Time: 2:42 PM OFFICE MEMO Placement of Conduit Date: 10/6/95 I'd hate to argue with a cad drawing (computers are never wrong :-) ), but I know my electrical conduit is more than .2 inches off. Eye balling looks like .5. I'll measure this weekend and try to figure out if mine is even further off than the plans. I mentioned this to Nat. He said he didn't have any problem that he remembers, and felt the measurements are correct. He said he didn't think it was a problem. I guess it's all just your perspective. I'm a first time builder and don't know what to worry about and what not to worry about. If anyone else runs into a problem here Marc Z. has a good solution, file a little here, flox a little there, and poof the hole is back in the right spot. From: DMDS%mimi@magic.itg.ti.com Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 09:35:02 CDT Subject: Drawing clarification From: David de Sosa DMDS Subj: Drawing clarification While laying out the drawings for the fuselage side profile, I noticed that DWG M15 is supposed to match up to M16. But M16 only shows the NCAA inlet and some other templates. The closest thing that matches up is M9 but it doesn't seem to match up too well. Am I missing something here? Maybe there has been a correction published that I have not incorporated yet. David From: Lee Devlin Subject: Re: Drawing clarification Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 9:00:35 MDT > > From: David de Sosa DMDS > > Subj: Drawing clarification > > While laying out the drawings for the fuselage side profile, I noticed that > DWG M15 is supposed to match up to M16. But M16 only shows the NCAA inlet > and some other templates. The closest thing that matches up is M9 but it > doesn't seem to match up too well. > > Am I missing something here? Maybe there has been a correction published > that I have not incorporated yet. Thanks to Marc Zeitlin and Judd Stewart for inputting newsletters with the changes to the WWW pages. The correct answer is: 12. Drwg. M-15 - change join to page M-16 to M-9 >From Newsletter 34. Lee Date: Mon, 06 Nov 1995 16:38:03 -0600 From: tims@enet.net (Tim Sullivan) Subject: Need Advice (Read: HELP) Well my first big bust of my project happened yesterday. I popped my fuslage sides out of the jigs (ch 5) and low and behold the epoxy leaked through my foam seams and glued itself to the jigs. It took a bit of foam with it. The jigs are ok (if Ray Volk is reading, they're his). But my sides have blemish to 1/8" sprawls of foam ripped along the seams. What is my best course of action at this point? Micro now or wait until I glass the sides? Micro at all? Wet flox? Bondo (never!)? Anyone? Tim Sullivan (tims@enet.net) Phoenix, AZ | * | Cozy MK IV Builder #470 |-----(/)-----| The journey begins 8/10/95 / \ Current Status: Ch 5 o o Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 23:22:28 -0500 From: Danky01@aol.com Subject: Re: Need Advice (Read: HELP) In a message dated 95-11-06 22:31:22 EST, Tim Sullivan wrote: >But my >sides have blemish to 1/8" sprawls of foam ripped along the seams. What is >my best course of action at this point? Micro now or wait until I glass the >sides? Micro at all? Wet flox? Bondo (never!)? Wait until just before you glass the sides. Mix up a little micro, that is dry enough to hold its shape and spread that in the depresions with a squeege. You should be able to shape this back to where it should be without much trouble. Then glass right over top. If you micro now, you will have to sand it. Because the foam is softer than the micro, you will end up with high and low spots all over. Not good. Dont use wet flox or bondo for this. It is much to heavy. I only use the flox when there is a reason to use something stronger, like joining the bulkheads together. Kyle Dansie Cozy IV #86 From: Lee Devlin Subject: Re: Need Advice (Read: HELP) Date: Tue, 7 Nov 95 12:06:05 MST Tim wrote: > Well my first big bust of my project happened yesterday. I popped my > fuslage sides out of the jigs (ch 5) and low and behold the epoxy leaked > through my foam seams and glued itself to the jigs. I did the same thing. I figured that the leakage would only help hold the sides in the jigs but didn't realize how much damage would result. If I were to do it over I would: - Use the 5-minute epoxy very sparingly on the joint. - Prevent the joint from sticking to the jigs with polyethylene or saran wrap. - Use hot glue instead of 5-minute epoxy everwhere else For the really big pock marks, I cut rectangular holes around them, chisel out the foam, and then epoxied in pieces of foam exactly sized to fit and then sanded the areas down. The plans say to carefully remove the foam from the jigs and glue it into the pock marks but mine were so epoxy soaked that I knew they'd never sand well. They even rolled up into little balls when I tried to chisel them off the jigs. One of the problems I've found with using dry micro to fill sizable holes prior to a layup is that the dry micro will absorb the epoxy from the cloth and, if you're not careful with the squeegy, you can create a slight indentation in which it will be difficult to prevent an air bubble from forming. On flat areas of the PVC foam, I prefer use to dry micro on the smaller holes and sand them down to shape after curing. This will not work for the Clark or urethane, however, since those foams are much too soft compared with cured dry micro. Lee Devlin Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 11:02:01 -0500 From: JHocut@aol.com Subject: CH 5 - triangular spruce I was just informed by Alexander that 3/4 inch triangular spruce (corner blocking) isn't available in lengths over 8'. This certainly won't do, since the length called for in the plans is 105". Where are other builders getting this length of triangular spruce? Wicks? Aircraft Spruce? This is going to be real expensive wood if I have to pay shipping on just these 2 pieces (I've already got all the other from Alexander, I'm within a reasonable driving distance). Thanks, Jim Hocut Cozy IV # 448 jhocut@aol.com From: Marc Zeitlin Date: Fri, 1 Dec 95 12:48:34 EST Subject: CH 5 - triangular spruce (fwd) Jim Hocut writes: >I was just informed by Alexander that 3/4 inch triangular spruce (corner >blocking) isn't available in lengths over 8'. This certainly won't do, since >the length called for in the plans is 105". Where are other builders getting >this length of triangular spruce? Wicks? Aircraft Spruce? I got mine in the chapter kit from Wicks - no problem. You could buy a few lengths from Alexanders and butt-epoxy the ends together. That would be at least as strong as the wood alone, and it all gets glassed over anyway. There's no longitudinal strength need from this longeron. -- Marc J. Zeitlin Email: marcz@an.hp.com Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 14:09:00 -0500 From: Dick.Finn@FNB.sprint.com Subject: Re: CH 5 - triangular spruce Jim, I wasn't faced with this problem but would suggest you buy a 1" x 2" pice of spruce at the required length. You could then rip it at a 45 degree angle. As I remember, the piece is for the bottom longeron and is a right triangle. I'd suggest ripping it on a table saw unless you have a resaw blade for a bandsaw. Its seems to me that a thinner blade might wander a bit. Assuming you have the saw it would be cheaper than buying and paying the shipping. Dick Finn ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: CH 5 - triangular spruce Author: JHocut@aol.com at INTERNET Date: 12/1/95 11:35 AM Where are other builders getting this length of triangular spruce? Wicks? Aircraft Spruce? Thanks, Jim Hocut Cozy IV # 448 jhocut@aol.com Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 15:59:10 -0500 From: JHocut@aol.com Subject: Re: CH 5 - triangular spruce Thanks for the replies to this problem. I just now got things worked out with Alexander, a small misunderstanding on the part of someone there. They don't STOCK pieces that long, but can get the material with a wait of a couple of weeks. Not a problem since I won't really need them until about then anyway (thanks to this stupid deal of having to work for a living). Jim Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 09:01:44 -0500 From: Jeff Rosson Subject: RE: CH 5 - triangular spruce >I was just informed by Alexander that 3/4 inch triangular spruce (corner >blocking) isn't available in lengths over 8'. This certainly won't do, since >the length called for in the plans is 105". Where are other builders getting >this length of triangular spruce? Wicks? Aircraft Spruce? This is going >to be real expensive wood if I have to pay shipping on just these 2 pieces >(I've already got all the other from Alexander, I'm within a reasonable >driving >distance). > >Thanks, > >Jim Hocut Cozy IV # 448 jhocut@aol.com > > Could one not simply use a piece of clear, properly selected Douglass Fir obtained from the local home center? That is what I was planning to do when (if) the wife gives the go-ahead to let me start building. (Yes -- make your selection carefully in accordance with proper aircraft standards, i.e. proper number of annular rings, correct grain slope, etc.) I have looked at wood at Home Depot and a small proportion appeared suitable for aircraft use. Seems like it should save some bucks. Shipping a 9' stick though the mail isn't cheap. Jeff Rosson P.S. The latest on my double postings: A techincal representative from my Internet provider has contacted me. Hopefully a resolution is near! ______________________________________________________ Jeffrey K. Rosson, P.E., KE4KZ Ph. 407-254-1500 Director of Engineering Fax: 407-259-4122 "Logically, it could work. Also, logically, there are a hundred variables, any one of which could put us in a worse position that we are now in.'" Mr. Spock in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 22:43:06 -0500 From: JHocut@aol.com Subject: Ch 5 - Hints Here are a couple of simple hints for anyone not yet to chapter 5 (everyone who's furthere along than me has pretty well covered the difficult stuff, so I guess the rest of us can begin on the little things). It may not be readily obvious (like it wasn't to me at first), but you REALLY want to glue the foam together for the fuse sides and cut it to size before setting up your jigs etc. Otherwise you'll do like me and get the jigs and forms all set up on your work table and then realize that there is no space left for gluing and cutting these rather large pieces of foam. While trying to figure out how I was going to trace a smooth curve connecting the points on the foam for the fuse sides I spotted a piece of scrap foam on the floor and a light bulb came on. A piece of scrap foam cut from the edge (so that one side is assured of being straight), about 1/2" wide works great as a "flexible curve" for connecting the dots. I just bent it to shape, held it in place with a few small finishing nails, marked the line with a felt pen and moved it on to the next segment of dots. Also, for those who are interested in vac. bagging, the fuse sides are going to be pretty easy to vac. bag. I had to make my masonite forms oversized to allow room for the sealing tape etc. (which also means that you will need a table about 4' wide to allow for plenty of overhang in the center of the table). Note that while the form for left and right sides are further apart than shown in the plans, be VERY careful to maintain proper spacing of the jigs for each indivual side. Epoxy the masonite to the jigs instead of nailing or screwing to maintain a good vacuum seal. (Hold it down with plenty of weights while the eposy cures). When you place the foam on the masonit forms ready to be glassed, be meticulous about getting it positioned relative to the jigs as shown in the plans (otherwise the fuse sides will be shaped incorrectly). Of course you will have to do a very good job of sealing the seam where the extra piece of masonite is added to get to the proper length (I sealed mine with two coats of micro). And of course, by vac. bagging these pieces you will be limiting yourself to doing one at a time instead of both at once as shown in the plans. Jim Hocut Cozy IV # 448 jhocut@aol.com