Kyleag04
Active Member
After a couple of nights of carefully measuring, marking, trimming, and bending the longerons on my -7, I realized that I made a horrible mistake. Per the plans, I had trimmed the aft ends of the longerons to clear the rear bulkhead and the vertical empennage attach bars. I then clamped the two longerons together and bent them together. I have to say, I did a beautiful job bending them to match the template exactly.
BUT, THEN I REALIZED MY MISTAKE...
Instead of bending the longerons inward, I bent them downward!! ARG!!!! I checked my measurements 3 times, I trimmed everything perfectly, and I bent the longerons beautifully...in the wrong direction!
Ok, so I briefly thought about cutting the last 12 inches off of the longerons, rotating the longerons 90 degrees and designing a splice to tie them back together. But this is my new airplane that I will be carrying my family in. There will be no splices in my longerons.
Ok, tomorrow I will call Van's and see how much shipping will be for two new longerons...ouch. We have a ton of aluminum angle at work, but of course none is 3/4 x 3/4 x .125.
Now, I have to ask for help from the VAF community. Is there anyone in the DFW/North Texas/Southern Oklahoma area that has any leftover longerons from their project? Anybody know a source of 3/4 x 3/4 x .125 aluminum angle in the area?
Any advice would be appreciated.
BUT, THEN I REALIZED MY MISTAKE...
Instead of bending the longerons inward, I bent them downward!! ARG!!!! I checked my measurements 3 times, I trimmed everything perfectly, and I bent the longerons beautifully...in the wrong direction!
Ok, so I briefly thought about cutting the last 12 inches off of the longerons, rotating the longerons 90 degrees and designing a splice to tie them back together. But this is my new airplane that I will be carrying my family in. There will be no splices in my longerons.
Ok, tomorrow I will call Van's and see how much shipping will be for two new longerons...ouch. We have a ton of aluminum angle at work, but of course none is 3/4 x 3/4 x .125.
Now, I have to ask for help from the VAF community. Is there anyone in the DFW/North Texas/Southern Oklahoma area that has any leftover longerons from their project? Anybody know a source of 3/4 x 3/4 x .125 aluminum angle in the area?
Any advice would be appreciated.