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Stevens Web Site
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Date: 12-13-2006
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Number of Hours: 2.70
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Bent the upper longerons
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Tonight I passed a real milestone. I bent the longerons and placed them in the fuselage jig. Bending the longerons was a bit of a nail biter. I worried that I would not get them oriented right. I watched the George Orndorf video several times and his technique was to clamp the longerons back to back, bend one and then bend the other, doubling the distance. Well, I clamped the longerons together, back to back, just like he said, but they already had a gap between them. It would be impossible to measure the bend by the distance from the other longeron, because it was not flush against the longeron you are bending in the first place. So, go to plan B. I snapped a chalk line on my building table so I could measure any bend against that straight line. I then clamped the longeron in the vise and commenced to pull and pound on it like it says in the plans. About an hour and half of fiddling later, I had two bent longerons. It took a fair amount of tweaking, because bending the longeron in one direction would produce a slight bend on the other axis, which had to be straightened out. In the end, it all looked pretty good and the measurements came out right. Next, I clamped the firewall into the jig in its rough position. I will have to get some 3/16" stove bolts before I can fix it in the jig for good. I am really jazzed. The fuselage will now begin to take some sort of shape (even if it is the shape of an upside down canoe).
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Bending a longeron with a little muscle and a big hammer
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Upper longerons set in the jig
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Longerons and the firewall roughly set in the jig. More precise placement to come.
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