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Thread: First, Build a Shed

  1. #71
    Senior Member Cherrybark's Avatar
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    Default Re: First, Build a Shed

    Great details on these deformed thread locknut. I'm glad I asked the question just for the knowledge gained.

    Dropped by Fastenal and picked up an assortment of "plain" nuts to use in temporary assemblies. Useful sizes are 10-32, 1/4-28, and 3/8-24 (landing gear). Not a chance my Lowes or HD had these in stock.

    My wife donated a bottle of bright red nail polish to paint the temporaries. She'll pick up a bottle of bright yellow for marking nuts after they are torqued.
    Carl Strange
    Flying
    SS7, 912iS, Oratex, G3X

  2. #72
    Senior Member jrevens's Avatar
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    Default Re: First, Build a Shed

    Quote Originally Posted by efwd View Post
    Interesting that your nuts are the lead color. Mine are the same color as the bolt. Vibration must be the purpose behind this nuts use here. It was my understanding that these deformed nuts are purposed for high temp areas like engine components or those close by. Nylon in normal temps.
    Eddie
    There have been all-metal lock nuts of various thread-gripping designs for many decades. This MS design for nuts came about later. Yes, it is "high" temperature, but it was designed mostly for weight savings with superior, or at least no decrease in strength. These nuts are available in several materials. There are steel ones with the same type finish/plating as conventional AN "nylocks", basically cadmium with an additional post-treatment that gives them that copper/gold look. Then there are the same nuts out of steel with a dry lubricant coating, giving the finish a dull dark gray color. There are also stainless steel ones that are silver-plated. There are probably others also. All of these coatings provide lubrication, as well as corrosion protection. The silver is especially good as a lubricant for the SS, that will not create tiny particles flaking off like dry lube (graphite, "moly", etc.), and it has a much higher melting point than cadmium - especially important in applications like spacecraft, assembled in clean rooms to avoid any contaminants. My friend Gary ("colospace") could probably speak to this more intelligently than I, as he worked as an engineer on spacecraft. All of this is off the top of my head, and probably more than you wanted to know. It is also possibly incomplete or flawed. I'm sure others could add to or correct if necessary.
    Last edited by jrevens; 10-19-2016 at 10:02 PM. Reason: correct punctuation
    John Evens
    Arvada, CO
    Kitfox SS7 N27JE
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  3. #73
    Senior Member jrevens's Avatar
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    Default Re: First, Build a Shed

    Quote Originally Posted by Cherrybark View Post
    ...
    Dropped by Fastenal and picked up an assortment of "plain" nuts to use in temporary assemblies. Useful sizes are 10-32, 1/4-28, and 3/8-24 (landing gear). Not a chance my Lowes or HD had these in stock...
    Lowe's or HD will almost certainly have the 10-32 & 3/8-24. Only the 1/4-28 is a little problematic. You can get those at your local Ace Hardware though... just for future reference.
    John Evens
    Arvada, CO
    Kitfox SS7 N27JE
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    Chap. 43 honorary Lifetime

  4. #74
    Senior Member Cherrybark's Avatar
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    Default Re: First, Build a Shed

    Tried Lowes first but no joy. Admittedly, Tyler Texas might not have the most complete Big Box inventory.

    I'll amend that statement to say I couldn't find the correct sizes at Lowes. And it was one of those days that the employees had evaporated back into housewares or wherever they go.
    Last edited by Cherrybark; 10-20-2016 at 07:30 AM.
    Carl Strange
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  5. #75
    Senior Member colospace's Avatar
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    Default Re: First, Build a Shed

    Re. the metal lock nuts. On all the satellite programs I worked on for so many years, we only used full metallic locking nuts. I wish I had kept my binder with all the specs on the various hardware we used (whose going to need that anymore?), but certainly we used the MS21043 and MS21044 a lot. My programs were more concerned about being certain of positive locking for the launch environment than some minor concern for metal particulate generation. Mind you we were concerned about metallic particulates, but we were pretty aggressive about maintaining cleanliness in general. And we had 100% mission success and long-lived satellites too as a result. That said, there were other programs in the same company that avoided the all metallic nuts and used the fiber locking or sometimes even locking compounds. On my plane, I have used some MS21043 nuts with NAS620 reduced OD washers where there was reduced flat area available in some structural channels, but I mostly use the kit's fiber locking nuts except for critical stuff under the cowl.
    - Gary
    S7 SuperSport Tri-gear
    w/Rotax 912, Oratex, Dynon

  6. #76
    Senior Member Cherrybark's Avatar
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    Default Re: First, Build a Shed

    Wings mounted, aligned, and spars drilled.

    A Kitfox will just fit in a 32' garage space. A window alcove one one side and a home entrance area on the other gave just enough room to walk around comfortably. Having read the section of the manual a couple of times and gathered the needed supplies, I figured the job would take about a day. Of course, it took longer. Everything was perfectly lined up by the end of the second day but I decided to wait till morning and do one last check before drilling. Besides, it was Friday, Fall weather brought cool evening temperatures, and the local high school had a home football game.

    Checked measurements one last time Saturday morning. Drilling and reaming the hole was uneventful. The wings are back on their rotisseries, the garage cleaned, and I'm looking forward to playing with clecos.

    The rigging process was made much easier with that $40 digital level from Home Depot. I was skeptical about the accuracy, but flipping the scale on a relatively level surfaces gave consistent answers. There are "mold marks" on the ends of the level that can be lined up with a "wear line" on the spar to make certain the level is parallel with the spar. Zip tying the digital level to a 48" i-beam level, then taping a 1/2 block near the end of the longer level made a perfect tool for the job.

    The $50 Bosch laser measure was the other key to accurate rigging. Setting the Bosch on a mark on the spar and aiming for a 1/2" sticky note square on the rudder mount post, made it easy to take measurements - shooting three or four measurements to make certain the small square target was being hit. Out of interest, I tried to measure with a metal tape and was quickly frustrated by the sag.

    Both of these ideas were gleaned from the forums. Perhaps someone will stumble across them here.

    This was a very interesting part of the build and a milestone in the project.
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    Carl Strange
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    SS7, 912iS, Oratex, G3X

  7. #77
    Administrator DesertFox4's Avatar
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    Default Re: First, Build a Shed

    Excitimg time in the build process. Drilling those important holes after checking and rechecking measurements a couple times is a milestone.
    That's a day in my build that really stands out.

    Congrats Carl.


    DesertFox4
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  8. #78
    Senior Member jiott's Avatar
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    Default Re: First, Build a Shed

    Yes Carl, you're done with the main things that will make the Kitfox the nice flying machine that it can be. Its a good feeling. I remember going to bed that night and running over the process in my mind; thinking I did everything per the book as carefully as I could without rushing or taking any shortcuts. Then I could confidently move on to the other phases of the build.
    Jim Ott
    Portland, OR
    Kitfox SS7 flying
    Rotax 912ULS

  9. #79
    Senior Member efwd's Avatar
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    Default Re: First, Build a Shed

    Only a "couple" times?!!. Man, I took those measurements a dozen times and still went to bed to sleep on it as Carl did. LOL
    Oratex is scheduled to arrive Tomorrow by 10:30 am. Get to have my boys help roll the airframe over tomorrow.
    Eddie

  10. #80
    Senior Member Cherrybark's Avatar
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    Default Re: First, Build a Shed

    Lift strut and spar reinforcement fittings are finished. The reinforcement fittings were the least intimidating so I started with them. After a lot of fussing with the first pair, the job went smoothly. There were enough clecos on hand to do four spar ends at a time. After drilling, prepping for bonding, and buttering with Hysol, the routine was to pull a cleco, wipe with alcohol, drop in cup of acetone, install rivet, repeat. After all the rivets were installed an alcohol wet finger on the gloved hand smoothed the Hysol around the edges and the blue tape was pulled. Then there was the cleanup routine of "flexing" each cleco in the cup of acetone to rinse and a final wiping with a paper towel.

    Lift strut fittings, and cleanup, took almost four hours each, so I did one fitting and called it a day. Happily, I caught my mistake of not using longer rivets in some of the holes after the the first fitting. Even luckier, it was a fitting with only four rivets so it didn't take too long to drill out the shiny new rivets and replace with the correct length. The white paint marks remind me to install long rivets in those holes. And I did grind down the sides of a hand rivet tool to install the rivet that is missing in the photo.

    A pneumatic riveter, Drill Doctor, and two 12-packs of quality #30 & #40 bits are a real help. I've become a little snobbish about having a sharp bit in the drill and the Drill Doctor makes it simple to keep the collection sharp. Very pleasing to have curls of aluminum twisting up the bit.

    It's almost obligatory to post a picture of a lift strut fitting full of clecos. But, the memory of Hysol oozing from the fitting seems much more reminiscent of this particular job.
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    Carl Strange
    Flying
    SS7, 912iS, Oratex, G3X

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