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F-811B They CAN'T Be serious

Have you seen one of the older kits? There were lots of places where aluminum snips and a bench sander or ******* file were needed.

It ain't hard, it just takes time.

By the way Dan's naughty word editor filtered out the proper name for the type of file that's needed...
 
They must have calculated the kit at 50.99%, so the simple solution to the 51% rule was making you cut that piece...

Yea...thats it... :D
 
Band Saw

I found no problem doing it on a band saw with a new blade. I finished it off with a vixen file and scotchbrite wheel.
 
Dude I can't even get my band saw to cut a straight line for half an inch let alone 14.5"s.

I decided to try my WOOD table saw and it seemed to cut it. I couldn't cut the whole thing because it was 10:30 PM and my table saw is very loud. So my initial response was a little bit of an overreaction but my blade will probably be toast after these parts are done.

There is NO way Van's has done anywhere near 49% of the labor on the RV-8 fuse.
 
briand said:
Well screw that, I'm ordering the right stuff from Spruce.
Filing or sanding down a half inch off a 1/4" thick bar just seems stupid when they could have just supplied the right material.

http://aircraftspruce.com/catalog/mepages/alumbar.php
That bar is probably used for something else on another kit and is the correct size for that kit. By having you cut it down to make the F-811B Van's avoids having to stock another part.

An example of this is the RV-10 nose wheel. Many of us RV-10 builders have spent $40 s/h to swap the nose wheel that Van's sends with the correct one from Matco. It means the difference between 1/16" and 5/8" clearance between the valve stem and nose fork. Van's response "We don't use the 511.25 to avoid stocking two different parts."

PJ
RV-10 #40032
 
vixen file

briand said:
Dude I can't even get my band saw to cut a straight line for half an inch let alone 14.5"s.
Neither can I, dude, but that's why I leave a little bit extra material for the vixen file to take care of.
 
ericwolf said:
Neither can I, dude, but that's why I leave a little bit extra material for the vixen file to take care of.

Heck with the file....

Those work bench mounted 1" belt sanders do it all! ;)

edit: after the band saw, of course.

L.Adamson
 
Ha!! You are *building* a plane, right?! hacksaw it, bandsaw it, nibble it. Whatever. Then use a sanding block or beltsander to true it up. No sweat.
 
I'd mount it to a piece of wood (for handling purposes) and run it through the table saw. More betterer than the bandsaw, I'd think.
 
That reminds me

Of a question....

I borrowed a proper aluminium blad for my chop saw once....Wow!

Then someone told me a standard wood carbide tipped blade works just fine.

I have never had the courage to try it.

Does this actaully work on a chop or table saw...Never been able to find the "aluminium" blade reasonably priced (i.e at HF)

Frank
 
From those of us that built an RV from a "kit" prior to the pre-punched age, we really feel for you. :rolleyes:
 
frankh said:
Of a question....

I borrowed a proper aluminium blad for my chop saw once....Wow!

Then someone told me a standard wood carbide tipped blade works just fine.

I have never had the courage to try it.

Does this actaully work on a chop or table saw...Never been able to find the "aluminium" blade reasonably priced (i.e at HF)

Frank

When I built the frames for the 48 solar panels on my roof, I used a fine tooth blade on my chop saw to cut the aluminum angle and it worked great...
 
I'm just going to use my Menards/China Pro-Tech table saw with its very coarse blade. I'll try to keep all my fingers.
 
I thought that using a band saw and a file wasn't really sporting. I used a bead blaster and a jig to direct the media very precisely. It only took three days. ;)
 
A 60 tooth carbide tipped blade in a chop saw works great on bar stock. It is noisy though. Should work as well in a table saw. Just cut a bit oversize so you can file off the saw marks and galling.

In the old days we had to cut it with.....A Herring! (lame Monty Python reference)

Remember when we had to cut the taper in the HS spar reinforcement bars and that long tapered cutout in the VS spar reinforcement? And that was like the first thing you did! I bet a lot of guys stopped right there!
 
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Did they bother?

fl-mike said:
Remember when we had to cut the taper in the HS spar reinforcement bars and that long tapered cutout in the VS spar reinforcement? And that was like the first thing you did! I bet a lot of guys stopped right there!

Mike ... I think a lot of builders just declared the long taper an "option" and never bothered.... :)

I personally prefer the House of Balsa 2 inch TufGrind disk in a dremel .. even works on those long cuts..... then clean it up with a Roloc sanding disk in an angle die grinder, and a final smoothing with a vixen file....

gil in Tucson
 
In an old RVator, or maybe even in the building instructions, VAN's suggests using the table saw to taper the spar pieces and called out a particular type of table saw blade that worked well for doing this. I did it back in 1995, but can't remember the particular saw blade type. It was inexpensive and worked really bell. I just finished them off on the sanding belt. (That was in the old type RV6 plans.)
 
frankh said:
Of a question....

I borrowed a proper aluminium blad for my chop saw once....Wow!

Then someone told me a standard wood carbide tipped blade works just fine.

I have never had the courage to try it.

Does this actaully work on a chop or table saw...Never been able to find the "aluminium" blade reasonably priced (i.e at HF)

Frank
Frank,
My brother has a machine shop and had a need to cut up some 1 inch thick aluminum tooling plate. The piece he needed was too large for the throat of his bandsaw and too thick for his plasma cutter.
He used a sears table saw with a standard carbide tipped wood blade.
It cut like butter. It really didn't make as much racket as I expected and I was flinching as he started the cut but I relaxed once I saw that the saw :) didn't seem to mind.

You would probably really need to watch the feed rate on thinner stuff to keep from taking too deep a bite.

-mike
 
I have cut aluminum on both my table saw and with my chop saw. It works great and will not harm a carbide toothed blade. In fact it helps clean the wood resins off of the blades. Don't use your good $150.00 triple chip blade, use a HomeDepot special. I would also be hesitant to cut material thinner than 1/8" with either one. Thin materials tend to snag on course woodworking type blades.

As another data point, I know one of the custom window shops in town cuts all of their aluminum window extrusions with a 10" miter (chop) saw with a 60T trim blade.
 
Remember when we had to cut the taper in the HS spar reinforcement bars and that long tapered cutout in the VS spar reinforcement? And that was like the first thing you did! I bet a lot of guys stopped right there!

Just fasten the part to a chunk of wood with one real straight edge so that the cut line on the metal is parallel to the blade. Use the wood to guide on the rip fence and you're done.

Any carbide blade will slice right through aluminum - my crosscut fence is extruded aluminum and I've seen it happen :eek: Until I saw that no harm was done to the blade, I was almost sick. I run a Forrest Woodworker II blade ($110).
 
mdredmond said:
I'd mount it to a piece of wood (for handling purposes) and run it through the table saw. More betterer than the bandsaw, I'd think.


I'll do that on the 2nd one. I just got done cutting the first one and when I got to the end the saw blade picked up the waste piece and threw it back at my thumb, could have caused a bad injury but I got my hand out of the way quick. I think what I'll do is hot glue the flat side of the alum. bar to the bottom of a piece of scrap plywood. That way when the cut is complete (stopping before I cut the wood into 2 pcs.), both chunks of bar will be stuck to the plywood.
 
briand said:
I think what I'll do is hot glue the flat side of the alum. bar to the bottom of a piece of scrap plywood. That way when the cut is complete (stopping before I cut the wood into 2 pcs.), both chunks of bar will be stuck to the plywood.

Think the stock might get hot enough to melt the glue? Could drill a small hole in the waste and screw it to the plywood.
 
Current Kit

Further to previous posts on this thread, the F-811B hole spacings appear to be perfectly matched on my kit.

Anyone know what exactly the tailwheel model has in this area that gives a larger width requirement vs the "A" model?
 

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Could be talking about a "mill ba$tard" file. The ones with the teeth going in one direction only like this one below make a smooth cut on aluminum.

351822.jpg
 
Vixen

A Vixen file is a lot more aggressive than an astard-B. Think wood saw vs. hack saw. The Vixen will shave aluminum down to size/shape in no time.
But I have gotten cut just picking them up. Click on the photo to see the "tooth" size. Cleaveland calls them a "10 FLAT CURVED TOOTH FILE".
 

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A Vixen file is a lot more aggressive than an astard-B. Think wood saw vs. hack saw. The Vixen will shave aluminum down to size/shape in no time.
But I have gotten cut just picking them up. Click on the photo to see the "tooth" size. Cleaveland calls them a "10 FLAT CURVED TOOTH FILE".

You can actually do fine finish work on skin edges using a sharp (new) vixen file.

That is what I use to finish the edges on most skins.
 
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