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Longeron

Take your time, realize that it isn't that hard, don't try and move the metal all at once, tiny increments eventually add up. Double check everything before you start drilling or cutting.

Soon this will be behind you and it won't be as bad as the legend. Kinda like fuel tanks.
 
The rubber coated lead deadblow hammer from Harbor Freight works well.

As mentioned; do a little, check the fit, repeat.

Carl
 
Go to big box store and buy a 4 ft. length of similar size angle. A little practice before the expensive one.
 
Bending dies

Borrow a set of bending dies. Lots of pairs out there to borrow. And use some good C Clamps, I tried the cheap HF clamps with the dies and the clamps broke. I had to buy some forged c clamps.
The bending is important to get it as close to the plans as possible. Take your time and it will work out.
 
I mounted the die in a vise, happy with the result so far.

Another note, though.... If I were to do it again, I would wait to bend the longerons until they were needed. Easier to store them when they are straight. Otherwise you have these long bent pieces that are hard to store while you work on the rest of the fuselage.
 
Double check that the angles are sitting correctly before you bend them.

And if you’re using the bending dies, you don’t need to nor want to fully bend the angle along the die. The die just moves the metal in the right direction. If you fully clamp down, you will way over bend.
 
FlyGuy65 said:
Go to big box store and buy a 4 ft. length of similar size angle. A little practice before the expensive one.
Click to expand...

I did the same by buying the practice pieces from HomeDepot. The Vans drawings are kind of confusing in term on left and right and the practice pieces became template for the actual angles. I still managed to screw up the actual longerons when drilling, not the bending. I found the bending job was far easier than all the posts I read. Plus instead of measuring the exact angle to the 0.1deg, have fuselage canoe ready and trial fit the longerons to the canoe before approaching the final bend angles.
 
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Another vote for the Buller Enterprises longeron bending dies. I did one longeron (partially) without them, and the out-of-plane bending was a real frustration. Then a kind soul in the area let me borrow his set of dies. Wow, what a difference that made!
 
Dies

I used the buller dies in a HF vise and the process went smooth. As said before, don’t fully crank down on the dies, only little pinches every inch until you get the right shape using the actual part for the shape and not the paper template.
 
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