J

jchang10

Well Known Member
Oops, noticed i misspelled his name in the title, Gelbart.

I have been slowly making my way through these Dan Gelbart fabrication tip videos. It has WEALTH of tips all through the series of videos. Personally, i am only through #6 Coatings.

Obviously, there are a lot of paint postings on here. It helped me understand some of my past mistakes. He really likes powder coating for the convenience and efficiency in no clean up, which makes sense to me.

Hopefully, the post stays, and i hope people can glean some other gems out of it. Feel free to post up the tips, RV related of course! :D

Warning, I would be surprised if you dont go poor on new tools after viewing these videos. :D

Jae

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7onZGqrYyY
 
Last edited:
Holy carp. I didn't even know these existed! Dan is awesome, I grew up knowing all about him and the company he co-founded (Creo) because his co-founder's son was my best friend in high school. Dan is an amazing engineer, and his basement workshop is to die for.

He's also an amazing story teller, he can have you laughing yourself silly with some of the things he's done in his lifetime.
 
Wow. I envy your time with him!!! He is obviously a wealth of info. His scientific background is so obvious. These are not your standard youtube videos by someone in his garage.

I found the video i posted on powder coating and paint prep quite informative. I did not realize you can get powder coating with epoxy. Solvent based epoxy painting requires a few days to cure. However, with powder coating, it can cure in 20 minutes. Of course, it needs the oven and is only practical for parts that will fit in the oven.

I wonder about Ajax for paint prep. Is it safe for Aluminum and how well does it work compared to Alumiprep?
 
Ajax is recommended in the Cri-Cri construction manual for cleaning and scouring aluminum. It's mandatory on that airplane for the bonded parts and recommended for the painted parts. The manual says to use Scotchbrite as a pad and to rinse generously while rubbing. Air dry with a blower (they suggest the pressure side of a vacuum cleaner).

It says that the process is good for a few hours, so I suppose that ideally it needs to be done immediately before coating.

Dave
 
Snowflake said:
Holy carp. I didn't even know these existed! Dan is awesome, I grew up knowing all about him and the company he co-founded (Creo) because his co-founder's son was my best friend in high school. Dan is an amazing engineer, and his basement workshop is to die for.

He's also an amazing story teller, he can have you laughing yourself silly with some of the things he's done in his lifetime.
Click to expand...

Dan was a founder of MDI (mobile data international) in the 80?s. I joined MDI (later purchased by Motorola) to continue development of his pioneering work, but he left for other adventures (CREO). Nevertheless, we had an annual award for innovaion in his name. I had no idea that he left such a video legacy.

Very inspiring, as well as his 100+ patents.

I took the cash from the Moto share buyback and jumped ship, co-founding a startup that eventually allowed me to buy all of the airplane toys I have now.

So, thanks Dan for supporting my career and hobbies at so many levels!
 
Awesome. All very interesting stories!

None of the videos are aviation specific. However, he has a true mastery of various materials and their properties. He also explains things from a scientific background, which makes much more sense to me than, "Someone told me to do it this way" for instance. Also, i figure since our airplanes are made from the same various materials, more than just Aluminum, i figure it can only help in the long run.

Also, a lot of the tools he talks about we we are not aware because the Vans factory has done it for us. That is fortunately or unfortunate, depending on your perspective. ;)
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otSjut1iGGk

Another good tip. At 4 minutes, this seems like a very easy mod for a drill press, let alone a mill. Never seen this done before. You can get accurate centering with an offset laser to draw circles on your part. I am thinking of all the times i had to drill through a rod, straight and perpendicular.
 
subscribed to his channel, thank you!

If anyone has any other YouTube channels to subscribe to, please post them up!

*for those unfamiliar with youtube, you can subscribe to channels and have them in your lineup almost like you would select a channel to watch on TV. it also helps the youtube channel owner as it (can) generate ad revenue for them and is also more likely to come up near the top when searched for.
 
Wow! Subscribed for sure. Easy to tell when someone is the real deal - in any walk of life. Undoubtedly, this gentleman is just that. Pretty sure he could talk about a drill bit for an hour and he'd have my undivided attention:D. Thanks for sharing this link.
 
Thanks Jae

You really got me suckered into this one:)
It is well worth the time to watch and listen to Dan Gelbert's Youtube series.
The man is a genius!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.