Now that I finished my 8′ metal brake, I have been able to bend a lot of the aluminum channel that is too long for my harbor freight 30″ brake. I’m pretty sure I’m going to spend less time using this brake than I spent building it.
Here’s the pile of parts I’ve bent since building the brake.
I decided to build Dave’s simple sheet metal brake for some of the longer bends on the scratch-built fuselage. I bought my steel from Service Steel, Inc., but didn’t originally tell them I was using the steel in a sheet metal brake and I needed the steel as straight as possible. Two of the 8′ lengths were almost perfect and I riveted them together with a steel hinge. The third piece was to be bolted on top to clamp down on the metal being bent, but it was bowed by 1/8″. Unable to think of a method of bending the steel that didn’t involve doing dangerous things with cars or car jacks, I contacted Service Steel and they let me trade the piece out for a straighter piece that worked great.
Here I am after bending the first 38″ piece. I am going to work my way up to the longer ones as I determine if I have a sufficient number of bolts and if my handles are satisfactory.
Here’s an assortment of parts I’ve been working on.
I’m pretty close to where I can start putting the aft fuselage together once I finish building my sheet metal brake. Instead of working on the brake, I have been jumping around making all the low-hanging fruit in the fuselage section. I have been dreading the slots in the forward fuselage longeron that the canopy latches slide into. I ended up using the jigsaw method to cut the slots. It is probably a less-than-ideal method, but I decided to just get it done and quit worrying about it. I am pleased with the results–I just need to do a little more work with the file.
There’s gotta be a rule against using a jigsaw like this.
I used the same technique on the phenolic–in fact I tried it on the phenolic first.
Here are the completed slots and countersunk holes. I had it all bolted together, but then realized I had more holes to drill and had to take it all apart.
I cut my splice plates out on the bandsaw and was worried how I would create the precisely chamfered edges. I ended up getting the critical edges perfectly straight with my vixen file, then used a chamfering router bit to do the edge. It worked great.
I also bent the parts using the v-block and steel pipe in a vise method. This is how they are supposed to fit together.
It’s been a while since I had a picture of me working on the plane. Here I am deburring the holes on a splice plate.
