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Best advice you got from another builder?

OrenAir

Active Member
What's the best advice you ever got from another builder, whether it's about building, flying, tools, etc. What one special nugget of wisdom sticks out in your mind as number one?
 
Don’t be a hermit builder, seek advice, use your resources...from the late, great Joe Blank, my tech advisor!
 
Are you building the next Lindy, or do you want to get the thing in the air?
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Build on.
 
Your building an airplane, not a watch. Ken Scott - Vans Aircraft and hangar neighbor.
 
Practice

Practice, practice, practice.
Building is a perishable skill. If it's been a while, practice on scrap first.

Get a Mentor then a Tech Advisor.
 
A friend built and flew his homebuilt. It wasn't an RV and had poor performance. Some time later, sitting in the cockpit of his recently-purchased Cessna, my friend said "I didn't have to built this. All I had to do was sign my name a few times."

That was good advice -- I took it; and I've only recently gone astray, building my RV-3B. But I still have and fly my Cessna 180.

Dave
P.S. Building an RV-3B is a lot more work than signing my name a few times....
 
Measure twice, drill once.

When we first started building, a friend brought over a [ruined] aircraft part. On it was written:

"Measure twice, drill once. That will be $60, please, for this lesson."

We still have it hanging in our hangar (19 yrs later).
 
Focus on small projects

Best advice was not to get overwhelmed by building an airplane and instead focus on individual projects. Keeps the sanity in check.
 
"Paint your wheel pants one color!"

This was before I had ever flown my 7a and I asked why? "So they are easier to fix when you damage them". Didn't understand until two years of flying, I landed in really long grass and damaged my main right pant. Only had to redo one color!

Wisdom from Paul Dye.
 
"When you get to a part of the build that has you totally stumped, take your wife out to dinner. Chances are you've been spending too much time thinking about the plane and not enough time thinking about your wife."

That one worked really well for me.

The other one that has always been at the forefront of my mind is:
"If you're not enjoying it, don't do it. If it doesn't feel right, it isn't. Come back to it later when you are in a better frame of mind."
I followed that advice pretty frequently and it often saved me destroyed or damaged parts, or allowed me to see a better way to do things. Sometimes getting away from the project is far more productive than continuing to work on it.
 
"Touch something on the project every day, even it it's just putting clecos back in the bucket".

"Decide if you're building a show plane or a go plane".
 
From Pierre Smith's VAF signature:
It's never skill or craftsmanship that completes airplanes, it's the will to do so.

This has given the the personal fortitude to continue on with my build.
 
Try never to do any riveting at the end of a build session. If you have an assembly all ready to rivet - drilled, demurred, clecoed together....quit for the night, and come back to do a sanity check at the START of the next session before driving, squeezing, or pulling those rivets. It will save you lots of do-overs if you give yourself time to think about what you are doing.
 
I go by this.... KISS.... Keep It Simple Stupid.

This makes it very easy to alter and maintain. And very easy to find problems.
 
My best guess is that the quality of an amateur-built aircraft is established even before the first rivet is driven. Some people have the patience and inherent disposition to build quality and others do not.

And you can tell which tribe they come from simply by the building advice they give to others. Here are some examples:

Build on
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good
Perfection is the enemy of completion
Build to go, not to show

or the diametrically opposing view

Compromise is the enemy of quality
Time spent equals quality (T=Q)

I'll leave it to you to guess who's building the better quality aircraft.
 
Simplicity

The best advice I got was:

Build it light, build it simple. Buy the parts and take the advice from Vans. Don't try and make your plane anything but the simplest you can. If it's available from Vans get it there and it will work.
 
If you love to fly sooner than later, build according to plan.

If you love to experiment, waste a lot of money, be chronic test pilot, go with an auto engine.
 
My best guess is that the quality of an amateur-built aircraft is established even before the first rivet is driven. Some people have the patience and inherent disposition to build quality and others do not.

And you can tell which tribe they come from simply by the building advice they give to others. Here are some examples:

Build on
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good
Perfection is the enemy of completion
Build to go, not to show

or the diametrically opposing view

Compromise is the enemy of quality
Time spent equals quality (T=Q)

I'll leave it to you to guess who's building the better quality aircraft.

Oh good grief. There is nothing wrong with building a show-plane OR a go-plane. Just decide which you want and don't compromise on airworthiness items. But don't tell new builders they HAVE to build a perfect show-plane, or most of us would have never finished and given up in frustration. I'd love to do it on my SECOND plane. But I can tell you I have just as much or more fun in my unpainted plane with a small smiley on the vertical stabilizer than any of the Lindy winners. We need to be encouraging new builders, not telling them that they have to rebuild every part with a minor superficial flaw - it's admirable, but certainly not necessary.

Chris
 
Oh good grief. There is nothing wrong with building a show-plane OR a go-plane. Just decide which you want and don't compromise on airworthiness items. But don't tell new builders they HAVE to build a perfect show-plane, or most of us would have never finished and given up in frustration. I'd love to do it on my SECOND plane. But I can tell you I have just as much or more fun in my unpainted plane with a small smiley on the vertical stabilizer than any of the Lindy winners. We need to be encouraging new builders, not telling them that they have to rebuild every part with a minor superficial flaw - it's admirable, but certainly not necessary.

Chris

I couldn't have said it better.


Advice I give is the way you eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

Also, the dang thing isn't going to build itself. Dive in.
 
"Why are you using a hand squeezer?" Bought a pneumatic squeezer shortly after and this ended up being one of the best tool investments I made.
 
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my top three

"We're trying to get to Denver*, not Mars."

"This is not Rocket Science"

"When you buy the best tool, you only cry once."






*Denver from here it's probably like Mars, but the quote runs ;)
 
If the parts don't fit..... you have read the instructions wrong ;)

Q: Why do you want to build an airplane ?

A: Because I want an RV

Wrong answer

B: Because I want to build an airplane

Right answer
 
Amen to every post. This has probably been my favorite post on this forum and can see inside each post during my build.
 
LISTS....

1. keep you focused, not overwhelmed
2. break a big job into small tasks
3. keep you organized when Van's instructions end
4. fit into your wallet or on your shop wall
5. allow you to cross off items after they are completed and that just feels good :)
 
I printed a list for every task large or tiny for every weeks task for 5years. At the end of the week I printed a new one starting with the task I didn't get to from the previous week and new task I wanted to get done. I threw all the old list away each week, wished I had kept them in a binder. Would have made a fascinating map of progress to go along with all the photos I took of every step along the way!
 
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