We decided to use Camlocs for the cowl-to-firewall attachment on the RV-3 project (mostly because I was worried about how to do hinge pins with cheek cowls), so the other day I was busy fabricating the flanges out of 0.050? aluminum. After cutting out the shape, I was trying to figure out a nice way to put a consistent smooth curve into the strip without kinking them at the narrow points. Since I don?t have any fancy bending brakes or rollers, I had to hand form them, and bending them over the edge of the workbench was going to crease them, so I looked around the shop to find some sort of ?form? that would work, and this is what I ran across:
Yet another ?alternate use? for an existing tool!
Oh yeah ? after getting them to fit the shape of the top cowl, and match drilling them to the fuselage, I needed to countersink them for the dimples in the skin. I needed some way to let the pilot part of the countersink drop in to a hole while it cuts its way into the sheet. Usually, I just use one of the zillion existing holes in the workbench surface, but since they were already curved, this wouldn?t work. My solution? A chunk of 2x4 in the vice with some #40 hole drilled in the short edge. Worked great!
There are certainly other ways to skin these two cats ? just throwing these out there if someone is looking for an idea.
Paul
Yet another ?alternate use? for an existing tool!
Oh yeah ? after getting them to fit the shape of the top cowl, and match drilling them to the fuselage, I needed to countersink them for the dimples in the skin. I needed some way to let the pilot part of the countersink drop in to a hole while it cuts its way into the sheet. Usually, I just use one of the zillion existing holes in the workbench surface, but since they were already curved, this wouldn?t work. My solution? A chunk of 2x4 in the vice with some #40 hole drilled in the short edge. Worked great!
There are certainly other ways to skin these two cats ? just throwing these out there if someone is looking for an idea.
Paul
