Sonerai One - Serial Number 012412-1179

[avgas]

Great work. I love this threat.
I may even take up a second Sonerai rebuild project My boys are nagging me to get this project going
These are great little aircraft. Fun to fly
What motor are you going to fit?

[bobthebuilder]

Hey Avgas,

I wish my kids were a little older. I would love to build something with them.
Both of them have been around aeroplanes all of their lives, yet my seven year old has no interest in aviation at all. My four year old is an hanger rat though, loves anything that flies.

The engine ..... not sure yet. Either an AeroVee, Great Plains 2180, or a Revmaster if it will fit. I am leaning more to the Revmaster though.
Any comments or suggestions?

[avgas]

My boys are 9 and 13. The 13 year old is going to buy (with little help from daddy) the project. The younger now indicated he will assist
The Sonerai was build around the VW type engine. Keep the weight down and she will be a darling. With the short wings you have to add plenty HP to make up for every KG unnecessary weight.
My previous one ZS WSW flew well with a 1835 VW engine that I built. No starter no altenator just the basics.
It was designed as a Pylon racer , light and basic.
Once finished we can open a pylon racing class at Parys

[bulldog]

Hi guys
I have built a Sonex with an aerovee.
The aerovee needed a lot of fiddling to get it working.
I have since moved to Oz and have just completed another sonex with a Revmaster 2300.
What a pleasure the Revmaster has turned out to be. Easy to install and runs like a Swiss clock. In my opinion it is the best value for money engine you can buy. The fact that it is test run before it leaves the factory makes all the difference. Regards Gary

[JvTonder]

Hi guys
I have built a Sonex with an aerovee.
The aerovee needed a lot of fiddling to get it working.
I have since moved to Oz and have just completed another sonex with a Revmaster 2300.
What a pleasure the Revmaster has turned out to be. Easy to install and runs like a Swiss clock. In my opinion it is the best value for money engine you can buy. The fact that it is test run before it leaves the factory makes all the difference. Regards Gary

Hi Gary how about some pic's off both your planes?

Mr Bob the Builder, roer jou gat just joking! Nice work mnr, you got more patience than I do and do beautiful and precise work.

[bobthebuilder]

Hi guys,

It’s been a while since this was last updated. So much has happened.... but sadly little on my beloved Sonerai.
I won't bore you with the details.... and I really have run out of Kleenex.... but I have managed to contract AIDS. Yip! That’s right ...the dreaded Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome. [That's not what really happened, but we'll leave it at that.]

My mistress (the lovely Miss Sonerai) and I were asked to leave the matrimonial home and take up residence elsewhere.
We were SHOCKED!!!

I was told to expect setbacks.... but come on.... SERIOUSLY!

Sadly, the project stalled for four months.

I managed to move the project into an unused office at the end of the passage at work. From a luxurious double garage dedicated solely to the project, to an office the size of a single garage. It has had its challenges.

I truck was hired to move the jigging table from the house to my place of work. It was offloaded in the workshop and remained there for all of ten minutes, until someone (stupid fart) tried unsuccessfully to put a coffee cup on it. It was swiftly moved into the open plan office for a few days, until my colleagues started complaining about it. Not sure why really, it is after all a MASTERPIECE.
This is where it got complicated. We couldn't get it to fit through the doorway in the designated office. A glassier was called out to remove the glass so that we could pass it through the window. Yip ... the security bars had to be removed first and re-welded afterward. It was about as easy as clubbing baby seals to death.

Thereafter, it took two whole days to get it levelled again. Somehow, it managed to get twisted in the move, and had to be bolted to the floor to pull it straight.

The first of the two fuselage sides was completed in August of 2014. It took about a year to complete. Sure, the spar box and tube notching machine were also built during this period, and the table had to be blocked up. It took a while, and I think a lot was learned.

The second one went together fairly quickly. I'll try to describe it step by step.

It took one evening and a few blisters to rough cut all of the tubes to the correct lengths with a plumber’s tube cutter. Another to bend the bottom longeron, and probably three days to notch all of the tubing. It was once again done with my home made tube notcher.





Another whole day was spent drilling the 2.0mm holes to allow the welding gasses to escape, and for the linseed oil to traverse after it's all closed up.
The positions were marked as per a previous post with the pencil in the sleeve. All marks were then centre punched. The longerons were a little awkward to drill, but it was simple enough to do, it just took a little time. (Please excuse the poor picture quality)





I also managed to blast all of the tubing with glass shot in the same day.

Welding, oil, and glass dust don't work well together. The tubes were cleaned inside and out with acetone the next day. The outside is dead easy. The inside was done by pushing paper towel rolled into little balls through the tubing with a filler rod. I found that repeating the process between four and five times seemed to work well. The balls were soaked in acetone.



I made a point of not touching the sand blasted areas with bare fingers. This was to ensure that the surface has absolutely no oil on it all. Almost sterile if you will.
They came out looking something like this:



After the jigging table was vacuumed to clean up the dust and get rid of the debris, the tubes were re-fitted into the jig, this after a quick acetone cleanup again. I know ... It sounds anal!















Note the 1.6mm packer plates under the 5/8" tubing. This was to raise the structure off the table, all to clear the small 3/4" sleeve tube which reinforces the landing gear. A total of 34 off packer plates were used.

I used the same spacers to separate the tubes that support the spar box. They have rusted somewhat since they were last used.



The actual tacking process took about an hour to complete using a TIG setup.

One note that's worth a mention. The last diagonal tube was fitted, BUT NOT TACK WELDED at this stage. I left it unwelded so that when the time comes to level the horizontal stabilizer, the fuselage can be twisted slightly if necessary. I actually left a bit more clearance on the notch for this purpose.



The second complete fuselage side took just eight days to complete.
In this time, my four year old and I still managed to build his aeroplane.

[JvTonder]

Excellent work as always, sorry about the rest of the nonsens!

[bobthebuilder]

Thanks for the kind words Jaco.

[Robbie Shaw]

Mr Kirland,

Good to see that you are hard at work... so looking forward to the completion of this project..... and its first flight ...

Keep up the good work.... chat later..

Robbie

[bobthebuilder]

Hi guys,

I love December. Its summer, I'm on leave, and have been living in a tee shirt and flip flops for .... hek, WEEKS! I actually can't remember when I last wore a pair of shoes. There's also been plenty of time to work on my Sonerai.

Yesterday marked the end of an era. The days of walking on over to my jigging table and finding it set for the fabrication of the sides are over. It was blocked up like that for about a year. It was a little hard for me to remove all of the wooden blocks and clean it up. Anyway, Kleenex aside, it had to be done.

Once all of the blocks were removed, the table was vacuumed, and the pencil lines that were drawn for the sides were erased. Yip ... you guess it. Vacuum time again.
I started out by drawing a centre line on the table. My ruler is just two meters long, and the table is over four. I wasn't sure that the centre line was straight, so a line was pulled across the table, and the pencil line was checked with a set square. After a few attempts and half an eraser, I managed to get it reasonably close to spot on.





Next up, some wooden blocks were shaped, drilled, and screwed to the table to support the cross tube at station 6.



This took up most of the day.

[bobthebuilder]

You know those mornings when you're standing in the shower, and something just comes to you ..... (Try not to imagine this too hard ... please!)
I have been trying to figure out a way to jig the two fuselage side trusses to the table, upside down of course, so that they are as square and straight as possible. The idea came about while I was rolling the soap in one hand ... go figure!

I dashed out the shower, chucked on an old tee shirt, a pair of flip flops and ran out to work, forgetting to have breakfast. (This idea was way cooler than breakfast)

The jig fixture was drawn up in about an hour.



I haven't actually cammed, or programmed a CNC laser in a months. This proved to be the height of frustration. The company is closed, and the "know it all" youngsters who could have helped are on a beach somewhere. Gutting fish is more fun. This "quick" process took me around an hour and a half. The "know it all" youngsters manage to spit stuff like this out in five minutes. Anyway, I grind my teeth and figure that I learned something.



The controller on the machine had a few more buttons than I remember too .... The darn things sprouted like mushrooms. Got it going though, after a call or ... ten to the "know it all" youngsters on the beach.



Bending the parts was fairly easy..... When I managed to find the tools to change the vee block and top punch that the "know it all" youngsters hide away in a "safe" place.

It came out looking something like this:



I have actually painted half of the parts with zinc chromate, but got so carried away with the stuff that I forgot to take pics.

Easy stuff. It was finished by 15h00. (less half of the paint … I ran out)

[Goose]

Looking good

You must sell all the Jig's and special tools to the a next builder and you will have enough money fore a lot of fuel

Keep up the good work

Groete
Goose

[Goose]

[bobthebuilder]

Hi Goose,

To date, all of the cross members have been cut and notched. The next step is to bend the longer on and tack that lot together. I've been a little tied up with life at the moment, but I'm keen to get stuck in and start making some real progress again.

[Goose]

Where is the foto's. We want more, we want more