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Bending fuel tank attach angle 3/16 in.

cleve_thompson

cleve_thompson

Well Known Member
I need to bend the 0.179 2.5x2 inch angle approximately 3/16th. inch so that it will lay flush with the fuse. I have tried our little brake and the brake bends. I went to 2 machine shops and they don't have a brake with a radius to make the bend. I did a forum search and found that the 7 uses a much thinner angle that I might could have bent but NOT the thick stuff called for in the 9. I am at a loss as to how to make the bend. HELP!!!!
 
Followed Van's instructions. I put mine in a vise and had at it with a 3 lb. deadblow rubber hammer. Worked fine.
 
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I draped the piece of angle over a piece of 2" water pipe in the driveway, then drove over it with a 1972 Buick Centurion. It bent.
 
Come on! Can I believe you? Run over it with a car? Hit it with a hammer! I realize we aren't watch makers but we are trying to build an airplane! Certainly there must be a way using a little more finesse! ;) ;)
 
Cleve,
You are never too old to whack it.....with a hammer. That's the way I did mine. It does work, just go slow so you don't over do it.
BTW - I hope to get my plane from the painter around the end of the month and will come down for a visit soon after.
 
beat it with a hammer :)

thats the trick , beat with a hammer in a vise.. like vans says its a truck
not the space shuttle. It is kinda funny though..



Danny..
 
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Beat it!

Well now this is just great. You just beat the snot outa the thing with a hammer. So Cleve gave it a try since all the nice posts said thats the way. Here is our nice straight piece of angle before it was bent. :)

Angle before it was bent, nice and straight

Cleve got to work on it just like you guys said, and here is what we got 30 minutes later.

Look what happened to our nice pretty angle.

Well it sure got bent alright. Thanks a lot for the advise guys. :(

So I said well, why dont we put some pipe under it and run over it in a car. Cleve said "no, his little compact wasnt heavy enough but we have a lot of trains comming thru here. Why dont we grab a couple of cans of beans and go down to the rail yard and make us a nice little campfire to keep warm and cook our beans. When a train comes by we can shove the pipe and the angle under the wheel. That should surely bend it right." :eek:

At that time our friend Lester a retired railroad man walked in and he up and said "NO, its a federal felony to shove stuff under a train wheel. Besides its going to rain and put out your camp fire and youll have to eat cold beans." :D

Suddenly, Cleve's eyes lit up like a 50 watt neon, and he yelled "Hey, I know how I can get that angle bent." He grabs another piece of angle and heads over to the vise. Well, write this one down in your note books incase you ever build another RV. This was pure genius, and it was as easy as bending a piece of 030 skin. He put the angle between the jaws and clamped it down. And cranked down hard on the vise jaws till the angle bent exactly right. We could even measure exactly how much the angle bent. How do you measure how much it bends between hammer blows? :rolleyes:

The clever way Cleve bent the angle using the vise

So here we are now with our finished parts bent exactly to the right shape and drilled out. And never struck by a hammer. Cool aye. :cool:

Nicely bent parts finished and ready to paint

Mounted to the fuselage with the tank stub drilled for the nutplate to go on

A nice job if I do say so myself. ;)
 
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Cleve and Claude,
Nice Job!
Yeah, I would have thought of that, too.....if I were a retired old airport bum with nothin' better to do than hang out at the airport and build an airplane with my buddy all day, everyday. :)
 
Excuses

Well dog gone it Bruce, you younger guys are so far ahead of us retired Ole Farts, we gotta come up with all the ideas we can to try and catch up with you. Ya see, when you come cruising over in your fresh new paint scheme at 180 mph, we still gonna be tied to the ground. dang it! :(
 
It's true! Beat it or squeeze it.

Beat the snot out of it! :rolleyes: It works well. I'm building a RV-4 and there is a lot of angles that are beat in to shape. It's the old saying, "beat to fit, paint to match". It's how it is done.
Kel
(20 years doing the A&P thing)
 
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