HP-24 Project

Update 29 April 2008: Tools and parts

Brad's made me a #3 bulkhead. The Soric in the middle looks kinda pretty, too bad most of that area gets cut out.

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The finished first-article instrument pod.

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With mockup instrument panel.

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Getting the floor bonded in.

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Ironmongery down in the gold country. Here's the five chords for the outboard spider. More like a decapede.

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This shot shows the adjustment provisions for the spider. First I weld a heavy-hex nut to a rectangle of 1/8" steel. Then I locate and clamp the rectange onto a chord. Then I weld the rectangle to the chord. Then I thread a jam nut onto a gun-drilled bolt and thread the bolt into the welded nut. When necessary, I bolt the spider down to the mold flange using 1/4" bolts through the bores of all the adjustment bolts. It's quite a mess of stuff, but most of it comes prefabricated from the hardware store.

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Here's the inboard spider tack welded together, and then flipped over and fully welded. I weld stuff like this together using little rectangles of 1/8" steel strip. That makes it easier to place the weld pairs symmetrically on opposite sides of the spanwise elements, which reduces weld-induced kinks to a tolerable level.

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Here's the chords for the inboard spider. I had to stop here because I have yet to determine exactly where to place the spanwise locator tube for the aft edge of the airbrake box.

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Meanwhile back in Monroe, Brad's started fairing in his tailwheel mount.

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Here's the plug for the instrument panel.

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A look down Brad's aft fuselage, showing the newly installed elevator push-pull tube.

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The instrument panel mold.

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The first-article instrument pod getting painted. Going forward, we'll probably make these using a black tooling gelcoat.

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Homebuilt aviation is not for folks who don't try things at home.

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page updated 29 April 2008 all text and graphics copyright (c) 2008 HP Aircraft, LLC