SonexBuilders.net

Merry Christmas sonexers,
In my aircraft spruce hardware kit, I got one huge block of 3/4" thick phenolic and a smaller piece. Is there a cutting plan, or does anybody have a recommendation on how to use the material efficiently?

Hey Bryan,

You'll use pieces of the large block at different points. From what I remember, you'll use blocks as rudder cable fair leads in the tailcone, as well as blocks to hold the rudder pedal assembly to the forward fuselage sides. I can't remember what the thin piece is for, but there's a use for it somewhere! You can measure the size you need and cut with a bandsaw.


Good Luck!

Mike

The thick one is also used for the Flap drive rod assembly. The thin one is used for the Canopy strike plates, and aileron bellcranks.

I have both a thick and thin one that are about 3 or 4" square. I also have a monster 1' by 6" piece, which is an estimate. I have to measure it. Seems like I need a lot of thick phenolic based upon what I got.

Brian, I asked Kerry about that awhile ago, he said that it was more than enough material. Just start making stuff from the small rectangle and move on to the large one when it runs out. There doesn't seem to be any extra-large parts that need to be made from the extra-large rectangle.

Thanks Ryan, that is what I did.

I received the fuselage hardware kit from aircraft spruce recently, and discovered that they don't include the 3/4" phenolic pieces with the standard build (vs quickbuild) fuselage hardware kit.

According the the hardware list on the sonex website, I need the following 2 pieces:

3/4" x 1" x 16" 16 sq. in.
3/4" x 2" x 8" 16 sq. in.

I send aircraft spruce an email asking for a quote, and I was told to refer to the quickbuild fuslage hardware kit, which states 0.25 sqft.

So I ordered 0.25 sqft with instructions that I needed the 2 pieces as indicated in the Sonex hardware list.

Well, they left me voicemail today saying that I'd need to order 0.5 sqft and they'd "include the cutoffs". So I called back and explained to a lady there what I needed. She was nice, but said the whole thing didn't make sense, and that she'd have her guy call me Monday...

Well I just looked that their website again, and it looks like they only sell 6" x 6", 6" x 12", 12" x 12" sized pieces.

All this to ask, is a 6 x 6 piece big enough, or do I need 6 X 12? Or is it necessary to have the piece that's 1 X 16 as sonex hardware list says?

Thanks in advance for the help,

There is nothing 6" or longer made from the phenolic.

The trouble is I don't think 6x6 is quite enough to make everything (rudder pedal blocks, flap blocks, and rudder cable fairlead blocks), so I ended up ordering a second one late in the project even though I didn't need most of the second block.

The 6x12 should definitely be all you need. You might double check or wait for a second opinion that 6x6 is definitely not quite enough.

I just had to re order some of the 3/4 size as I made a mistake with the rudder pedal blocks and had to remake. Only cost $10 or so from Aircraft Spruce and I ordered .25 or .025 of a sheet or something like that. I just looked up the quantity that was ordered via the quick build hardware kit list that was on the aircraft spruce site and re ordered that.