The night before last, I pulled my first rivets on this Sling 4 kit. With the fuselage partially completed by the previous kit owner, these weren't the first official rivets, but they were mine. Also, I did it with a hand riveter because I didn't have an air compressor. I have a pneumatic rivet gun, but no air.
Yesterday (Friday) I was prepared to purchase an air compressor. Naturally, my first step was to check with my wife, who has reminded me to mention how supportive she is of this project. Thank you, Dawn, for being extremely supportive.
Anyway, Dawn let me know that her mother wanted to give me something nice for my birthday (and the coinciding holiday, Christmas). She mentioned to her mother than I needed an air compressor and her mother generously paid for the one that I wanted. Thank you very much, Chris!
Time to complete HS1:
I set up the rear HS spar with the remaining ribs and brackets and went to work.
As with the spar rivets, I used rivets in all the holes to get the proper alignment before replacing them with clecos.
The picture below shows the completed HS1 assembly.
Another view of the HS1 assembly.
If you look closely at the rib flanges (above and below), you can see that I rounded the corners. I feel better having the rounded corners against the skins. It required about two hours of extra work to round all the rib and spar corners for the HS with tiny squares of sandpaper, but well worth it.
I love the smell of air tool oil in the morning...
This is the end of HS work for the time being. I expect to receive the replacement part I need to complete HS2 sometime in March. I'm moving on to the elevator, but I need another replacement for a damaged part in order to complete E3.
Yesterday (Friday) I was prepared to purchase an air compressor. Naturally, my first step was to check with my wife, who has reminded me to mention how supportive she is of this project. Thank you, Dawn, for being extremely supportive.
Anyway, Dawn let me know that her mother wanted to give me something nice for my birthday (and the coinciding holiday, Christmas). She mentioned to her mother than I needed an air compressor and her mother generously paid for the one that I wanted. Thank you very much, Chris!
Time to complete HS1:
I set up the rear HS spar with the remaining ribs and brackets and went to work.
As with the spar rivets, I used rivets in all the holes to get the proper alignment before replacing them with clecos.
The picture below shows the completed HS1 assembly.
Another view of the HS1 assembly.
If you look closely at the rib flanges (above and below), you can see that I rounded the corners. I feel better having the rounded corners against the skins. It required about two hours of extra work to round all the rib and spar corners for the HS with tiny squares of sandpaper, but well worth it.
I love the smell of air tool oil in the morning...
This is the end of HS work for the time being. I expect to receive the replacement part I need to complete HS2 sometime in March. I'm moving on to the elevator, but I need another replacement for a damaged part in order to complete E3.
Your work looks wonderful. Nice job. As I get closer to ordering an S2 kit, I can't help but wonder about damaged parts you've mentioned and a few malformed ones I've been reading about in various posts. What do you think my expectations should be about kit quality and build impacts? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteA lot of builders have noted receiving damaged or malformed parts in their kits. I think most the damaged parts occur during shipping and TAF is more than happy to replace. It just takes time and we need to make accommodations in our build schedule.
On the other hand, the malformed parts really should get discovered at the factory. Again, something for TAF to work on and a little frustrating as a builder, but patience is essential in this process (at least that's what I tell myself).
My experience building and learning with other builders locally and with kits from other manufacturers indicates that TAF is no more or no less prone to these issues. Since I have the complete airframe kit, I am spending some time going through the pieces to get ahead of replacement lead times.
I'm impressed with the quality, completeness, and organization of the kits overall. There's plenty of deburring and smoothing of the aluminum to do with little to no reforming or fabrication required. This can't be said of other kits I've seen.
That's my long answer. Short answer is the quality is well above average from my experience.
Wow. Thank you for your time and thoughtful comments. I’m encouraged. I’m looking forward to your success and am greatful for your sharing your build progress with us.
ReplyDelete