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DONALD'S WEB SITE
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Date: 6-9-2012
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Number of Hours: 2.50
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Manual Reference: SNX-L01
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Brief Description: Drilling Titanium Gear Legs to Axles
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Every Sonex builder fears having to drill the titanium main gear legs. They are expensive ($500 each), so you really don't want to mess them up. There are really two ways to do it -- drill the gear leg to axles first then set toe-in by rotating the leg in the gear mount and drilling that last, or doing it the opposite way (mounts first, then setting toe-in at the axle).
I went with drilling the axles first, though it might make it a little harder. I was paranoid that the gear might sit a little differently in their mounts, and the airplane might not sit straight as a result. If I drill the mounts last, I can measure the lengths and adjust the leg in the mount to keep the airplane sitting level. I think in the end either method is okay...but doing a tri-gear airplane means at some point you have to bend yourself at a horribly awkward angle and drill the mounts in place inside the airplane.
Drilling the axles was not nearly as hard as I expected. Using a lot of cutting fluid, the drill press set to slow speed (fast drilling titanium will just burn up the drill bit and not cut), and stepping up from 3/32, to 1/8, to 3/16, to 1/4 inch sizes worked great. I clamped the leg and axle in a drill press vise to keep it all properly aligned, and had my wife hold the other end of the gear leg to support it so it would not sag. It all worked out very well.
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Titanium Gear Leg Drilled
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