This entry shows the progress over the past three months or so.  It may not look like much due to the "learning curve" on some of the parts.  Needless to say, things took a lot longer to figure out than expected.  As I began the process of building the stabilizer, I realized that I could make all the parts except the leading edge.  The plans called for enlarging (swage) the end of the leading edge to fit over the connecting tube (tube between both stabs).  Think tent poles.  One tent pole is made larger to fit over the second tent pole of the same size.  Seeing that there was no way to do this on my own and unable to find a formed leading edge with the swage, I redesigned the stab to use a sleeve rather than the swage.  This was nothing new as I found at least one PMA'd part built the same way but no longer available.  

This is the design I came up with.  I knew it required making my own link assembly and connecting tube but the savings would be worth it.  Cost of PMA'd parts was about $ 250, my cost was about $15 plus lots of time.  So, I started on the link first.

Most of the work was straight forward.  The time came in keeping the inside of the link clean and straight to accept the connecting tube.  I knew the connecting tube needed to be turned down and not having a lathe, that took time.  I wound up grinding the connecting tube on a belt sander down to the proper diameter.  I was able to get the tube + or - .003" along the entire 16" length so I was happy.  The inside of the link assembly was sized using a brake cylinder hone going back and forth for a long time!  All said and done, the link and connecting tube took me WAY too long but it came out great.  By the way, some builders are using a polished or chromed connecting tube but Piper only calls for 4130 "fitted to a sliding fit" so I went with that.  If you have a lathe to turn the connecting tube you will save lots of time.  If you have a way to align bore the link, even better.  Me, a brake hone with sand paper wrapped around it and lots of cutting oil did the trick.  Did I mention LOTS of time?

Building the link

Another shot of the link

These little tabs are for the trim indicator wire.

Finished link with connecting tube in place

Next, bending the leading edge tube.  I won't show the mangled tubes that represented the learning curve.  Lets just say that I spent about two weeks figuring this one out.  Finally, another builder sent me a picture of his jig and it all worked out.  My jig consisted of two pieces of 3/4" ply cut to the curve with a "generous" amount of curve for spring back.  I say generous because I had to adjust it three times to get it correct.  I screwed them together and cut and sanded the profile.  Then, I took them apart and used a 1/2"cove router bit on each piece, keeping in mind up and down, then screwed them back together now having a 1" profile to match the tube.  I packed the tube very tightly with sand and drove in wood plugs at bottom ends to keep tight.  Most important thing about the bend is you MUST have a much longer piece of tube than necessary to make the bend work.  8' is minimum length and 10' would be better.  You will wind up cutting off about 4' when finished.  This is another reason to use .035 rather than original .028.  .035 is about $2.50 a foot and .028 is something like $8.25 a foot. .028 costs a lot more for the learning curve. With the end of the tube held tight against the end of the jig, slowly start pulling it into shape. You will need to move a bit of tube out past your starting end as you progress to get the curve just right.  My first attempt had the sleeve welded in place.  Big mistake.  I had to redo those sleeves and weld on after the curve was bent.  I did use a little bit of heat after I had the curve bent around the form to relieve a little stress. You will see in my pictures how much extra curve was needed to get everything just right.  After three weeks and lots of figuring, the first tube was finished.  The second one only took about 2 1/2 hours start to finish!

Tube clamped and bending begun.  This doesn't show additional block between the end one shown and tube.  

Here you can see the generous amount of curve needed on the jig for spring back.

The second tube!  Much faster

The two finished tubes with jig removed.

Next, I welded on the sleeves keeping the curve clamped in place.

I used a little heat to relieve any stress and let it cool to control spring back.  I did this a few times until the curve was held with out any pressure.

Finish weld of the sleeve

Now it was business as usual.  The remainder of construction was the same as the rudder.

The plans did not show this step but it was on the Super Cub drawings so I did the same.

 Another view of the end of the stab

Here the end is welded closed

End rib fitted in place.  All ribs were made in the same manner as the rudder ribs.

Trailing edge with bushings for tail brace wires

Ribs in place, ready for welding

The finished stab.  For the second stab, repeat all the above steps without the learning curve!

Here is everything after fit up.  It is very important to keep the leading edge and the trailing edge exactly parallel with each other and the second stab exactly the same dimensions as the first for alignment.  Mine were a little off and I had to cut the inside rib loose at one end, pull the tubes closer together and reweld.  This was not the end of the world, just normal fitting as I see it.  I have started on the elevators and have one of the curves bent but no pictures yet.  

The rudder is hinged in place and it moves!  This is one of those moments that keeps a builder going; at least me anyway.  I used the rudder hinge jig from www.supercubproject.com and it worked out great.  It took me a bit of time to make the jig.  After I went out and bought a uni-step bit it went a lot faster.  Below are the picture of the hinge process.  My next step is to weld on the control horn.

This is the jig in position for the upper hinge.  The jig holds everything in alignment.  You can download drawings for the jig at www.supercubproject.com     The drawings are on Christians link page, down toward the bottom of the page.  Take a look at his pictures section and you will find much better pictures of the use of the jig.

Another view of the jig in place.  You can see the lower jig at the top edge of the picture.

This is the first fit up of the rudder.  I did have to make a few adjustments for fit.  The top of my tail post was a bit out of alignment and the rudder spar needed some straightening.

Here is the upper hinge with the pin in place.  I will probably shim with a couple of thin washers for final install. 

Here is the lower hinge.  The small tube above the hinge is the rudder stop.  The stop will be trimmed after the rudder horn is welded on to the sleeve just above the hinge on the rudder spar.

Wow,
three months since my last update.  In that time, I have made some
progress but in the process I had to learn A LOT!  After finishing the
channel under the front section, I decided to build the rudder bar.  This
proved to be a lot more challenging than I thought it would be.  I built
them according to the plans, but had to start over three times to get it
right.  I started by welding up the pedals, that was ok.  I am going
to have toe brakes on both sides so I had to change the set up a little. 
Basically, the copilot side needed removable toe pieces like the pilot side.
Also, I added a finger strap to the top of each pedal (not shown on the
plans.  Then came the trouble.  I first welded the “V” that connects
the two sides together.  My plan was to weld that to the longer of the two
rudder bar tubes and cut out the section for the right pilot pedal.  The
problem arose when final welding, it kept cracking!  Finally after some
advice from Supercub.org, I got the sequence down and no cracks.  Getting
everything to fit and turn was a pain; 4130 will not stay straight when
welded.  I finally got everything turning ok and it was time to make the
attachment hardware.  I made a set of the “U” shaped connectors but did
not like the metal to metal contact.  After a bunch of research, I settled
on making pillow blocks out of UMHW Polyethylene.  As my research made a
full circle, I discovered that the RV aircraft have been using this method for
a while now so I felt good about the change.  One problem, how much friction
in the pedals is too much?  So, on to
build the rudder and tail fin. 

To
build the rudder, I needed ribs.  These
were made from 22g mild steel, bend to a taper. 
So, I needed a bending break.  So,
I built one. Than, I needed to bend the 15 degree edge on each rib.  So, I made a wood bending block for each rib
with proper taper and angle.  All in all,
I spent about a month figuring all this out and getting materials together.  Making each rib turned out to be very easy,
about a half hour for each. 

So,
I set up the table and built the tail fin and rudder using the same kind of
blocking method used in building the fuselage. 
With the fin and rudder finished (except for hinge) I now am trying to
figure out how to enlarge the ends of the stabilizer leading edge tube to
accept the connecting tube.  At this
writing, I have no idea how to accomplish this task.  Stay tuned.

Below are pictures of the rudder bar construction along with rudder and tail fin.

Rudder pedal and cable connector tube and rudder bar with most parts in place.

Ready to weld the V.  Gap must be maintained to keep weld from cracking as weld expands and cools.

Using a saw blade to maintain the gap at final welding

Rudder bar clamped in place with wood blocks for pillow block bearings.

Clamped in place with final pillow blocks

Making ribs using home made bender.

First bend followed by bending the 15 degree bevel with wood bending block inside.

Finished rib.

Welding the washers and bushing for tail brace wires.

Ready to weld and welded.

Bending the trailing edge of the rudder.  I actually bent this around the tree in my front yard to get the correct bend!

Ready to fit other parts in place.

Support wire welded in place followed by top of spar.

The welding process............. blocked than tack welded on table.
                  

Rudder horn made from .090 4130.  Make sure to leave extra metal on the tabs before bending and than trim off extra.  I didn't do that ................. this is the second one I made!

Rudder in place ready for hinge and rudder horn.

Below is an idea to redesign the stab tube to eliminate the need to swage the ends of the tube.  Any comments?

The bottom stringers are on!  I guess you could say that I am "finished" with the major construction of the fuselage.  No, it is not complete by any means.  Next step (other than finish welding here) is to start fabricating  the control systems.  That is the rudder bar, sticks, pulleys, and tail group.  I also have many unknown tabs to attach as I decide what kind of interior finish to go with.  So I have a lot of "detail" work to do at this stage of the fuselage.  I will be able to flip the fuselage back over after the final welding of the lower channel is complete.

Lower stringers looking aft

Front attach fittings for stringers

Stringer side attach fittings tack welded in place

Looking aft from side of fuselage

        It's mid February, the holidays are over, and I have a lot to show.  Stringer attach frames are done; door frames are complete, and I have all the 3/8" channel finished, less some final welding! (not shown above) So, here we go with a lot of photos.

Using poster board for channel shape. I made a few to the drawings but I did not like the fit.

Held in place for welding

Ready to weld to weld

All stations in place with stringer clips and stringers.

side view of stringers

Door channel cut and fitted in place,  I made card board patterns to get the correct angles for a miter at all corners.  It was difficult, but got easier with each one.

Upper rear corner, left door

Center front, left door

After fitting, 3/8" channel was fitted, welded, and primed.

Door area al welded and complete

Here I removed part of the lower channel of the bird cage and put a piece into window corner.  Much better fit.

Correct location of channel

I decided to use standard piper D window for the looks.  Shown here clamped in place.

Fitting I made to align stringer with window

Close up of attachment piece

Window tac welded , ready for final placement,

Windows in place 

Next I flipped over the fuselage to work on the lower channel.  Here is fire wall patterns used to help form curve of the channel.

A couple of pieces ready to be tacked in place.

Here I am getting ready to weld in the lower e channel.  I later removed and re fit this channel to get the skin to fit correctly.

Final channel upfront

Replacing the piece for better skin fit

Poster board to test fit skin.

Ready for final welding

Making the last curve

In place with side stiffener

And that is about where we are currently at.

Lower channel for boot cowl attachment

 Ok, four months and no excuses.  Well, I did take a break of about six weeks from middle of August.  The start of a new school year always takes time.  My wife also had foot surgery so, not much time for the shop.  I did get back at it last week and was reminded that I hadn't updated in way too long.  So, here we go.

Last update, I had finished the structural welding and it was time for the bird cage.  Needless to say, just getting started was a bit confusing.  I agonized over where to start; bird cage?.....door sheet metal?......fabric formers?.....channel near fire wall?   I made a couple of formers and decided to do the bird cage first.  The following series of pictures took place from july 5th till about August 15.  Not sure of the hours, but about 50 would be a good guess.  So here we go.

First, the jig set up to figure out where to build the bird cage.  The plans seemed to just be "suggestions" on how this might work.

I drew the wing rib on my table and bent and welded channel to make the three roof formers.

Next, with the two end formers in place, I fitted the D tubes that will be inside the windshield. 

I may have goofed here.  I decided to weld the D tube to the middle of the front tube.  I have seem it both ways, this and surface mounted.  Now I think I would rather have had it on top.  Time will tell and I can fix it if I need to latter.

Here are the two outside formers in place with tape.  Note the string across the ribs to locate the top of the cockpit.

With the outside formers in place, I cut some foam board into strips to mock up all the channel.  After I got it figured out, I took a bunch of pictures and made measurements so I could duplicate it in metal channel.

Starting to fit some of the channel after removing the foam strips.

Next, locating the stringer clips in place.  I had to make three of the fabric formers for the stringers.  I discovered that they would not fit the way I wanted.  I liked the lines formed with the third former in place, so I used that as my reference to fit the stringer clips in place. I will make the rest to fit.

First, the middle clip.  This was very difficult to establish the location.  The plans are very vague here.  I took a look at a bunch of pictures from other builders, each was different.  So, I found a position I liked and went with it.

This is detail of the side stringer clip.  Turned out to be rather simple but took lots of time to figure out and plan.

Clip just before welding in place.

Ends boxed and ready to weld before clip.

Some more welding before the clip was welded in place.

Stringer clips in place; bird cage awaiting sky light supports.

First, the windshield upper support.  Not to difficult here.  Be careful not to use too much heat.  My first weld warped the metal causing some work latter to fix.

Ok, now ready for the sky light supports.

Another view of previous picture.

And still another...........

Rear view showing the center stringer in place.  My center line is not perfect.  The heat really distorts the 3/8" channel.

And here are the sky light supports in place.

Side view of finished birdcage.

Ready for the fabric formers.

I finished the last of the structural welding with the attachment of the spar attach fittings.  Although these fittings were much easier to weld than the gear fittings, I did learn some tricks.  Like many things, if I would have known then what I know now it would have been a lot easier.  Pictures and captions below should make it clear.

This first picture is of the jig I used to align the fittings.  The jig is made from one inch square tube from Harbor Freight.  The distance from the holes to the bottom of the horizontal tube is the same as from the wing attach point to the bottom of the spar.  I used this jig to grind and tack weld all four fittings in place. 

After checking the measurements, I found the right front fitting to be off about 1/16".  I realized that the 1" square tube is not large enough for the fittings.  The plans do not show the dimensions, but the spar fittings have an open dimension of 1 1/16".  So, if you use square tubes you will need to weld a washer to the face of the uprights and grind to finished size of 1 1/16".  Then, weld to the horizontal.  I didn't do it that way and decided I needed to be very sure of the fit, so I made a couple of "short wings" to the exact dimensions of the spars.  I planed some birch ply to the .090 used on the face of the spars and made the dimensions exactly the same as the end of the spars will be.  The picture below shows the finished "wing"

Below are both wing jigs with a couple of ribs just to get an idea of how this will all look.

Next, when I fitted them to each side, I found I hade some alignment issues that the tube jig did not show me.  I removed the front right fitting and repositioned, and heated and bent the others a bit to get everything to fit.  When I was satisfied, I heated the fittings and formed them nicely around the clusters and finished the welding.  When finished, my "short wings" fit very nice!  This may have been a bit of overkill, but I wanted it as close to the plans as possible.  When everything checked out, I loaded it into my trailer and brought the fuselage to a friend who is a EAA Tech Consoler for a good once over.  Passed with "flying" colors!

Finished rear fittings:

Finished front fittings:

Loaded up and off for an inspection, We passed!

 Gear is on and it is starting to look like an airplane!  After a lot of head scratching and a bunch of email help, I completed the most difficult (for me) step so far.  The gear have no toe in, axles are on a straight line with each other with in 1/16". It should taxi pretty well.  Camber (angle or tilt at the top of the wheels toward or away from fuselage) will be determined by the length of the die spring shock strut yet to be made.

I made a set of wood "shock struts" to determine the length of the struts.  I am going to use die springs from Wag Aero; I  need to order them next week.

Front view of the fuselage and a close up of the finished front gear attach fitting with the cabane attach fitting welded on.  Next step: wing attach fittings.

 I haven't posted in about 6 weeks.  It wasn't that I had not been working; I wanted to finish before posting.  This has been one of the most difficult tasks to date.  But, I am finally (almost) finished  welding the gear attach and cabane attach fittings.  Every thing fits just great.  My sequence was to weld the lift strut complete first.  Then, I welded the bushings after establishing correct alignment with a piece of 1/2" tube that went from front to rear fittings.  Next, I welded in the bushings in the remaining rear attach piece and the front attach fitting and cut out the center section.  Some where in this process, I heated the longeron and flattened it to accept the front fittings.  Next step, I made a jig to ensure proper alignment of the landing gear.  I bolted the landing gear in place with the jig, and checked for fit of the cabane strut.  The cabane fittings required a lot of bending to get them just right.  I wound up discarding the ones I got from Wag because I made the mistake of welding the washer on before I made the necessary bends.  With everything clamped in place, I tack welded the front and rear fittings in place, then removed the gear and cabane attach fittings.  On to final welding.  This was much easier than welding the lift strut fittings!  After the gear attach fittings were completely welded in place, I reattached the cabane fittings, making the necessary final bends to get the correct opening for the cabane.  Now, it was back to welding on the washers on the cabane fittings.  With the washers welded on, I slipped the cabane attach fittings on the bushings, attached the cabane, and made some final adjustments.  With everything clean, I began welding.  I have about an hour of final welding left to do on the cabane attach fittings and then they will be finished.  I will need to heat and bend the cabane attach fitting just a bit to get the two sides parallel and the correct 1 1/4" distance but that will be easy.  My last step will be to final ream the bushings to 3/8".  Although the bolts fit now, they are a bit tight and reaming will correct the fit.  The last step on the gear for me will be to make the shock strut.  I saved this for last because any issues with alignment, length, etc can be corrected with the shock strut as it is a separate part requiring no welding to the fuselage.  The following pictures show the process up to the final welding needed.

Alignment of fittings with cabane.

Alignment of fittings.....................................

Welding in bushing for front fitting

Tack welding in bushing for rear fitting.  Bushing extended to front fitting for proper alignment.

Rear bushing welded in place, center yet to be cut out.

Box jig built to establish alignment of gear before welding.

Another view.  Box was attached to plate on gear according to the Piper drawings.

Blocks attached and centering bar attached to establish straight line between gear for alignment.  The bar is a heavy duty shelf bracket from Home Depot.

Gear and fittings in place before tack welding.

Rear fitting tack welded

Front fitting tack welded

Rear fitting finished!

Front fitting finished, awaiting cabane attach fittings.

Cabane fittings ready to weld in place.  Note Cabane strut in background.

Another view, ready to weld.

Landing gear and lift strut attachment fittings......Wow!  I had been avoiding this because I knew it would be difficult ..................... and it was, I'm still not done but the hardest part is finished.  The last post I showed pictures of my fittings.  With the help of Tom at Wag Aero and lots of advice from other builders, I formulated a plan.  I took the advice of another builder and decided to build my cabane before welding any fittings in place.  This was a fairly normal fabrication, although particular attention was needed to keep the bushings properly lined up.  The pictures to follow will show how I did that step.  With the cabane finished, the next step was to weld together the two pieces that make up the lift strut fitting and weld that on to the fuselage.  More on the welding latter.  With the lift strut fitting in place I am now ready to attach the gear fittings.  My plan here is to weld the bushings to the u brackets first then attach the gear and cabane as a jig and try to clamp all the parts in place as a jig before tack and final welding.  I will update and post pictures as I go along.

Back to the lift strut fittings.  This was the hardest welding I have ever done!  Welding the plates together was easy.  Fitting the plate to the fuselage at the proper angle was very time consuming.  It took me about 2 hours or so for each side.  The fitting needs to be at 22.2 degrees relative to the cross tube for the 2+2, with the attachment holes for the lift strut 5/8" on center to the longeron, and the fitting parallel to the front lower longeron!  I went and bought a digital level and what a good thing that was.  With out it, no way could I have gotten it correct.  I would up lightly tack welding it in place with some clamps, measuring, heating, tapping with a hammer, measuring, heating, tapping...........well you have the picture.  When satisfied, I welded the outside of the fitting.  Pretty easy although it took a lot of heat.  The inside was another story.