Yearly Archives: 2015


Fuel Tanks 32 (2.0 hrs)

Okay, first thing is first. I’ve been slacking on keeping up with my posts, and tonight I find myself several posts behind. I’m tired, so they are likely to be sparse on the details. Hopefully I’ll update them more thoroughly this week.

In other news of my slacking, I’ve not been doing a good job taking pictures during my recent sessions. I blame this on using my phone to play music in the hangar.

In this session I set out to leak test my two tanks. Mike Rollison lent me the manometer shown below. The leak test kit is courtesy of Mike Bullock. Man, KDMW is great for pilfering and borrowing tools for free!

The setup is simple. Connect the manometer to the fuel intake and close everything else up. Then pump air into the tank via the stem valve connected at the fuel drain. I used 4 inches as recommend by Van’s.        

Well, wouldn’t you know it. The first tank leaks in two spots along the baffle. This is the tank that I replaced the baffle during the z-bracket disaster of 2014. IMG_7748.JPG

Thankfully, the second tank was rock solid. I left the hangar with 3.5 inches of water, and when I returned half an hour later…

There was more than 4.5 inches! The temperature was going up rather steadily with the mid-day sun. Its clear this tank has no leaks. 


Fuselage stand / Rotisserie (5.0 hrs)

On this absolutely gorgeous day at the airport, I set about making a fuselage rotisserie. The difficulty I have is that my rotisserie must also be movable inside the hangar for space constraints. Mike Rollison had two engine stands that belong to the chapter in his hangar. One for each end!

My basic plan is to secure these to the top of a rolling platform.    

I removed the wheels in order to make the engine stands perpendicular to the floor.   

Here is the nearly finished product. I’m not entirely happy though. The end result seems too high. So, I’m not sure.     

I started making the mount for the firewall. As you can see, I’m using scrap from the hangar. So far, I haven’t had to buy a single thing for this platform except 4 of the 6 wheels.     

I had a tripod drafting board setup in my old garage for the plans. But I had not brought it with to the hangar, and it was a shoddy setup anyways. I was really sick of posting all the plans all around the hangar and constantly switching back and forth. I used the old backing board I had and some two by fours to make the stand. I still need a hinge to attach the third leg, and a chain to hold it in the tripod position. I used some spare aluminum angle and c-clamps to clamp ALL of the diagrams provided by Van’s. They are in order so I’ll easily be able to find what I’m looking for. Further I can move the stand wherever I want in the hangar for easy use. I clamped a board down the bottom to help straighten out the schematics since they are all curled from transport. 


Fuselage Inventory (6.0 hrs)

Fuselage inventory actually spanned two sessions in the shop. There isn’t much to report, I am only missing three items. I had to buy some more small parts containers and organize the shelves appropriately.