Cotton Waiex 191 - N191YX

[Rynoth]

Mixer mount! I had no clue what those were for until looking waaaay ahead in the plans after assembling the tail cone. The wide variety of holes in the bottom of the channels are for anchor nuts to secure an access hatch. The Waiex gets a hellhole!

[Bryan Cotton]

Ah, that makes sense. I recognized the nutplates holes. The shape is imprinted in my DNA.

[Bryan Cotton]

While Adam riveted the mixer mount I started making pulley retainer things. Not too exciting, a piece of 1" wide 0.125" thick piece with 2 holes and rounded ends. I started off putting masking tape on, marking the centerline, using a compass to mark a semicircle, and drilling the first hole to 3/16" in steps.

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I used a 3/16" drill to align two of the holes. Back in the good old days (we had a lathe at EAA533) I made some nifty drill bushings for my hummelbird project. I kept them.

Drill bushing

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Here it is, with the hole transferred. I brought it up to 0.250", then headed to the bandsaw where the fun lasted until the blade broke.

Centered

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Point of all this gory detail is to not use the nice angle parts as drill guides.

[Bryan Cotton]

I miss having a lathe. Here is my substitute using a cordless drill and a file to shorten a bushing. If my machinist buddy Mark D from back in CT could see me he would call me Hackatola Khomeni.

Poor man's lathe

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I like reflection pictures. I am easily amused.

[Rynoth]

Bryan, I just want to go ahead and (redundantly) reiterate that the cross tie box assembly (WIX-F24) will end up needing some slight trimming of the laser cut parts to clear the upper splice plate when you're assembling the aft fuselage box assembly (WIX-F21).

Tonight I drilled out my cross tie box and turtledeck former #1 in order to replace the bad splice plates that were shipped in my kit. I thought I would have an easy time of correcting the fact that I did NOT trim the cross tie box and had slightly greater than 40" (about 40 1/8", but you can tell it's not right) outside diameter of the fuselage. I don't think it's going to be that easy however, and I'll probably need to order new cross tie box parts and replace it altogether, due to the bolt and rivet holes already drilled through them.

I've found several builder logs who ran into this issue of an oversized laser-cut part (actually, it's exactly as called for in the plans) and (thankfully for them!) caught it and corrected it. Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

http://www.kansasflying.com/sonex1017/f ... 80829.html

This is the most "gotcha!" thing I've run into so far in my build, and unfortunately it got me. Can't recall any other laser-cut part yet that had to be modified in such a manner not called for in the plans. Maybe I'm the first one to ever miss it.

[Bryan Cotton]

Thanks Ryan, I understand the issue now. I just pulled all my F-24 parts this evening. Almost done with F-25, just need my chief riveter to do his work.

[Bryan Cotton]

The chief riveter - Waiex 191.

[Rynoth]

Your chief riveter takes his work very seriously...

[Bryan Cotton]

Riveted the cross tie box today. Had two guns going. YouTube video to follow.

[Bryan Cotton]

Here is our rivet video.
http://youtu.be/tgxySnPC_ZQ

Added a couple of pictures too.