Hand Squeezer (The Yard Store)

My first rivet was squashed with this baby...

This Stainless Steel Texas Hand Squeeze from the Yard Store is a really nicely made apparatus. It's packaged very nicely and it's smooth motion works as well as it looks. As you can see, it also came with 1 1/2" and 3" yolks plus some squeeze sets.

150mm Offset Bench Vice (Trade Tools)

The Trade Tools 150mm Offset Bench Vice is a welcome addition to the shop.

Product Information

A superb industrial duty fabricated steel offset vice. These vices are beautifully finished with a smooth acting mechanism. Steel fabricated vices such as these are far superior in terms of both strength and longevity than the lesser cast iron [or even cast steel] vices. These fabricated vices have been manufactured to properly withstand the kind of punishment that vices generally receive!

Don?t be fooled by our low prices as we import these vices directly into our own warehouse which allows us to offer them at these low prices. They match some of the very best available but at a fraction of the cost!

Features

• Fabricated Steel Construction
• 150mm Jaws
• Exclusive To TradeTools
• Weight 26Kgs

Workshop

 Well....the idea was obtain a place to build parts of a plane - check. 

Then, to setup a workshop capable of performing such a function - ahh, not quite.

This will eventually become the space I need it to be. I know, it doesn't look like it right? But it does have a little potential. It's not quite a hangar but it's the best I can do for now. If I had a choice, polished floor boards wouldn't be the base for my workshop. More on that later.

I was fortunate to be able to obtain some racking at a very discounted price - right place, right time. 

As mentioned earlier, polished floor boards wasn't my preference so I decided to cover the floor in rubber backed carpet squares. It came up better than I thought. This is obviously the 'before' shot...

I needed to get some of the racking out of the garage so I could bring my car in.

The bench was about 1.5' less than the width of the room which was perfect as the compressor fits nicely in the corner. The lighting isn't perfect (especially that one in the corner) so that's something I'll need to fix over time. 

This area will adapt as I create a place to store tools & parts, read drawings, improve lighting and the most important thing - I'll have to set up a sound system of course. I'm fortunate to have an A/C unit to one end of the room so temp shouldn't ever be an issue. Once the larger components of the plane begin, I plan on having storage space closer to the roof and may need to shuffle things around to optimize the space although I'm expecting that to be at least a couple of years down the track.

Bench Drill (Trade Tools)

I'm very happy with this item. I searched for a couple of years to find the right tool for my purpose. I actually saw this drill press years ago but thought I'd better have a look around and see what's out there as at the time I thought the price was little steep. A good drill is a keeper as very rarely does a good bench or pedestal drill leave a workshop without resistance. Unless it's purchased, it will normally be handed down within the family. 

I found much bigger drills on eBay, Gumtree and other places but they were often too large, 3 phase monsters, pick up only from interstate or just too expensive. Most tool stores stocked high turnover, sub-standard equipment that may or may not run true and indeed look like it may only last around a year or so - just beyond it's 12 month warranty.

Eventually (approx 3yrs later), I made my way back to one of the first nice looking drills I'd seen. Yes, it was a little more pricy, but this is a piece of machinery I plan on keeping around for a long time so I'm looking at it as more of an investment and it really is a quality tool. As limited floor space is a consideration for me, I decided on a bench drill. However, this one can actually be converted to a pedestal drill with the purchase of another stand.

The Renegade 16 speed 3/4HP Drill Press from Trade Tools

Spar and strengthening plates

This is the spar and reinforcement plates after being drilled and prepared. Everything just lined up. Hopefully the real thing will be as kind. 

There were some issues when installing the rivets. When it came to inserting the larger rivets to attach the plates, even though I'd only just drilled all the holes (lined up with clecos), pulled them all apart, deburred and reattached, the holes didn't line up perfectly. I had four of the five holes clecoed. I even reamed the hole again but the rivet still would not fall into the hole to be squashed. 

Maybe it knew what was about too happen...

I ended up having a lot of trouble removing the unset rivet and haven't got around to installing another one just yet. Soon though.

The Dimpler (JC Engineering)

After reading many a builder's logs and speaking to a few I know who have had experience with dimpling aluminium using different tools, I decided long ago that the DRDT-2 dimpler (or equivalent) would be a member of the family when it came time to dimple.

I've had quite few years to mull over how and when to obtain one of these pieces of kit including the following:

1) Borrowing - this option probably won't work as they're used in almost all stages of the build and then acquired/borrowed soon after;

2) Obtaining after someone has finished with it - unfortunately, I don't know anyone nearing the completion of their machines;

3) Purchasing locally - I searched high and low, but it seems the dimplers are one of those tools extremely useful down the track and highly sought after. To be honest, once I've acquired one, I think I'd only ever loan it out myself. (That remains to be seen)

4) Purchasing internationally - as the original weighs 60lbs, shipping costs to get it to Australia were pretty much the same cost as the unit itself which made put it up around the $750AU mark.

5) Having fabricated locally - I drew the below image for a local fabricator to give me a quote. The parallel beams were two long edges of a bench I could move around. 

I can't actually remember how much was quoted but it was more expensive than the real thing and I still had to purchase the plunger to be installed on the front plate. This option didn't work for me either.

6) Fabricating myself - This option does appeal as I like to attempt new things. Up until this point, I hadn't owned nor operated a welder of any sort. When I attended Oshkosh in 2013, I sat in on a welding presentation given by Lincoln Electric. Great presentation and very professional crew who delivered it. From my limited experience they definitely knew what they were on about. They focused on MIG and TIG but it got the cogs turning. This was the point I decided I was going to make my own DRDT-2 as I'm sure I'd get in trouble if I attempted to jam one into the overhead luggage on the return flight.

I purchased a fairly cheap inverter stick welder on eBay, bought some scrap metal from the local steel yard and began welding things together. I won't upload any images of that - it wasn't pretty. I learnt fairly quickly why they teach people to weld on thicker gauge steel.

I read an article on Vans Airforce Forum (Dimple in the middle of F-01484) about the fact the DRDT-2 dimpler can't reach the center hole in the floor pan. This being the case, I added an extra 2" to the length of my design. The box steel wasn't quite as thick as the original either as I failed to take notice of the design specs when I excitedly jumped in the car to go and buy some steel. Not to worry. I thought with what I'm saving making my own, I could mess this up about 20 times before I broke even.

Onto the fun stuff.....

The blue lines indicate the pieces I needed to take off.

After the cuts...

First four welds...

From a different angle. If you look closely, you'll see the welds are pretty bad. Still strong enough for purpose.

As the welds weren't very attractive, I decided to grind the sides flat.

I didn't like having the feet so small, so I made them a little bigger. In hind sight, I should've brought the front foot right to the front but I'm sure I can deal with it. Almost finished - just need to cut some threads in the face plate and drill some holes in the base for the lower dimple die holder.

Tadaaaaa!

The dies line up perfectly and I've tried to get it to flex in some direction - nope.

Very happy with the final result. A little gun metal grey to complete the master piece.

RV Practice Kit - stiffeners onto skins

I finally made my dimpler and am now able to dimple those rivet holes that are harder to reach. The home made dimpler works like a bought one which makes it just that much more satisfying. 

I only just realized I haven't taken any photos of the results of the dimpling. This image is after I've completed back-riveting both stiffeners onto CP-1. It looks ok from this distance, but if you take a closer look at the first 3 rivets I squished, the close-up isn't too flattering. 

These are the first 3 rivets...

Yes, I also noticed the rib hasn't been cleaned up properly - better fix that later.

I actually practiced on some scrap a long time ago and they turned out fine so I was a little confused on how these 3 turned out this bad. I did only hit one at a time and then inspected my work. As the second rivet turned out a little better, I put it down to the fact it was the first rivet I'd set in about 6 months so I went ahead and squashed the second. That turned out better than the first - must be getting the hang of it. Nope. The third was appalling.

I revisited the plans and notice I'd grabbed some rivets from the AN426AD3-3.5 container where the plans called for AN426AD3-3. The tiny little bit of extra length caused this.....or at least that's what I'm going to say. Let's also agree there's much room for improvement.

Here are some other pics of the other rivets...

I think I might practice how to remove and re-insert a rivet.

No better time than on a practice kit!

Here's what the skins look like from the top side...

Pneumatic Squeezer (The Yard Store)

Without doubt the most important purchase (from my perspective anyway). Some might say the plane itself is - yep, I could go with that also.

I've had the pleasure of being able to assist a mate, Steve, build parts of his plane and the amount of effort the pneumatic squeezer avoids is huge! Anyone who's been able to compare a manual squeezer to the pneumatic squeezer I'm sure would have to agree.

I purchased the "C" Squeeze with 3" Yolk from The Yard Store not long ago and 

I'm looking forward to using this on the real thing...

Some figures on the squeezer:

• Force pounds: 3000
• Jaw reach: 3"
• Weight: 5.5lbs
• Length: 10 3/4"
• Aluminium rivet capacity: 1/8"
• Steel rivet capacity: 3/32"
• Single cylinder
• Uses standard 3/16" shank squeezer sets and dimple dies

8" Bench Grinder (Trade Tools)

I think I'm going to need more than one grinder unless I'm going to change the discs depending on what I need to do. This 8" grinder from Trade Tools however, was my first choice.

I also purchased the Abbott & Ashby's add-on belt sander as this will be very useful working the aluminium edges. 

I've mounted this on the workbench but I as don't wish to waste too much space, the next one will have to be on a pedestal of some sort.