Justin's Raven

[Johannvanniekerk]

Hi Justin

Do the doors seal nicely? I am also building one of Carl's Ravens (from kit) and are probably where you are now but painted and I can tell you fitting/building those doors were a nightmare!! I think I did the one 3 times and i'm still not 100% happy.
Flew with my friend who also build a Raven and nearly got brain freeze! Clearly he also struggled. Carl has probably perfected his hand work with all the kits.

Cheers
Johann

[justin.schoeman]

The doors aren't perfect, but pretty good. I am using pipe insulation for the door seals (around 10mm thick), and they seal it up quite nicely.

I am, however, removing the front cover strips, and making properly curved ones. The gap on the top is too large, even when the door is flush.

It must be a huge job to build from kit though. It is taking me months, just for the finishings.

[Johannvanniekerk]

Yip huge job, but extremely rewarding. I log the building hours, cost and keep the poprivet stems in a tin (have to keep the place tidy). I don't think there are many who could tell me how to pull a rivet! Must have popped about 5000.
The parts in Carl's kit really fits nicely, so that helps. But the doors are a poor design and almost impossible to get perfect. The square frame is so wobbly while you try to measure and drill. Nee bliksem

Building the kit is only 50% of the job, they say. Boet and those other exprienced guys will tell you fitting the engine, instuments and interior is the other halve of the fun.

Geniet dit

Cheers
Johann

[justin.schoeman]

Oh boy.

Worked late at the office, fixing a data problem for a customer.

This is the first decent rain since I moved into my new house. Naturally I was in for some surprises.

It seems in a feat of architectural brilliance, the garages and workshop was built with the floors sloping ever so slightly inwards. And no steps in front of the doors. So naturally, I got home to discover that both the garage and the workshop have turned into small dams .

Spent an hour or two cleaning and drying the worst of it, and wedging towels under doors to try keep things dry until I get a chance to do a permanent job.

Obviously no work on the plane tonight, but there was some decent progress over the weekend. Will post some details soon.

[Tailspin]

Hi Justin

I have a set of Calipers and Disks Laying in my Boot ready to be collected.
Give me a shout when you are available for a delivery.

Gavin

[justin.schoeman]

Hi Justin

I have a set of Calipers and Disks Laying in my Boot ready to be collected.
Give me a shout when you are available for a delivery.

Gavin

Thanks Gavin.

Yanked one of the wheels off tonight, and it seems it could be very easy to convert them to disks! The drums just bolt on, using the same through bolts for the hub halves. Removing them is no problem, and the same bolts can be used for the disk spacers. Just need to get hold of an engineering firm to see how much that would cost.

Thanks!
-justin

[justin.schoeman]

Little bits and pieces of progress.

I remembered an ideal flush fuel cap for my tank - the Jabiru fuel cap. Popped the factory a mail, to see if they will sell them separately, but they didn't even bother replying, so I assume they don't. Fortunately the design is incredibly simple, so I thought I would give it a bash:

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Absolutely leak proof, and takes about 40kg of force to move it when tightened. I am a belt and braces guy though, so I will make it fasten to the fuselage skin too.

Also did some work on the cable brakes, before Tailspin talked me into disk brakes:

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A simple motorcycle brake handle to mount to the control column. A little pulley doubler increases the cable tension. Gives the same cable tension as the original long lever, but obviously total movement is much smaller. Can only work if the brakes are perfectly adjusted.

And the finger filter and welding flange for the fuel tank:

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I will take the tank for welding on Saturday, and start the flow tests next week.

[Tailspin]

Justin

Can you give me more info on the Brake Lever setup.
I got small hands and the whole brake lever setup on my Sunbird is Questionable at best.

[justin.schoeman]

Justin

Can you give me more info on the Brake Lever setup.
I got small hands and the whole brake lever setup on my Sunbird is Questionable at best.

It is a standard motorcycle brake lever, but the cable goes around a pully, and back to a fixed point on the handle. This is the classic 'single pulley doubler'. Since the tension on the cable is the same at all points, you effectively have double the force pulling on the pulley.

It has the same effect as doubling the length of the brake lever, BUT it halves the length of the pull - so where you would pull the brake cable 1cm before, it will now only move 0.5cm, but it can exert double the force to move it that 0.5cm.

The pulley has two pulley blocks - the bottom pulley has a single cable that goes from one brake, around the pulley, and out to the other brake. This pulley just ensures that the cable tension is ditributed equally to both brakes.

Can you PM me your number sometime? I would like to give you a call.

Thanks,
Justin

[justin.schoeman]

Been a slow week, or two. Had to spend time working on the house, and wasn't feeling great for a few days. To top it off, the car packed up today. Which had the advantage that all I could do, is work on the plane .

Spent a good couple of hours, and a number of dremel grinding discs, cutting up the panel, starting to fit the instruments:

Slowly but surely starting to look like a real panel .

[Giarc64]

looking good justin

regards
craig

[justin.schoeman]

Ran out of Dremel blades, so I had to put the panel aside for now. Instead, I did some playing with the old cylinder heads. When I looked at them initially, it seemed there was some really bad design of the fins around the exhaust port, so I had a closer look.

There were a couple of fins that looked like they could go all the way through, but were blocked. Since the heads are toast anyway, I put a grinding bit in the dremel, and tried to open them up. Some of them were solid, but the rest went straight through. It looks like a lot of the fins are blocked off with flashing from the castings. The ones that did open up, nearly doubled the total flow area around the exhaust port. I will practice a bit more with the old heads, and hopefully do a good job on the new heads, when they arrive.

Aside from that, I carried on with surface prep for painting. I am beginning to again consider having a professional paint job done - not for the painting - just for the preparation. Wow it is a lot of hard work...

[justin.schoeman]

Not much progress for a while. Been gathering bits, and do finishing work.

Finished most of the work on the fuel tank, and thought I would do a small test. Put the cap in, blocked up the breather, and hooked the compressor up to the fuel outlet. Pumped the whole lot up to 1 bar. Bulged quite alarmingly, but not one leak, and the fuel cap didn't budge - even without any additional restraint - just the squished o-ring.

Looks like this is going to work perfectly :D .

[justin.schoeman]

Well, cricket season has started, and that is chewing up a lot of my free time. (More than you would expect, because at the moment I am so unfit, I can barely move for the next two days after any practice or game .)

Anyway, finally made some more progress today:

1) Finished off the fuel cap:

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Came out much better than expected.

2) Started making the switch guards. One finished, and two blanks cut.

I actually really enjoy working with aluminium. I wish I had done some metalwork at school. It is kind of nice when you finish filing two blanks, put them on top of each other, and can barely see the seam. (Pity it doesn't always work out that well though!)

Should finish off the panel, and the basic wiring this week.

[justin.schoeman]

Doh. Feel like a bit of a retard. Worked out all the electrical systems, and how many fuses I would need, then fitted a fuse box with space for 2 extra circuits.

I then decided to add a transponder, which used one of the spares. And now when it comes time to hook everything up, I realised that I had forgotten all about the master bus fuse, and avionics bus fuse - so now I am short one.

I think I will have to put an extra fuse box on the center console, and make that the avionics bus.

The best laid plans of mice and men...