Mike and Kerwyn,
You guys have some good ideas. Like you I have a home situation where I
don't have the luxury of using the garage. I am thinking of a roll around
stand with jig bolted to an upright that can rotate. Your ideas sound good
though.
Larry Bell
On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 5:14 AM, Kerwyn Stoll <kerdogs at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> I built my wings in my basement, also in a jig. I also have an article in
> one of the KR Newsletters about it. I'll try to dig that out this weekend
> and send it to you. I do have less authority than some as I never finished
> my project. It is in a hangar next to a SkyRanger that I built in '07.
> Unfortunately, the SkyRanger is a big distraction for me from finishing my
> plane. (I get all of my KR motivation when I'm along the interstate and
> watch a semi truck pass beneath me.) I tried selling my project last fall
> on Barnstormers, but had very few people interested in it because it was a
> KR2, not a KR2S. I may still finish it one day, just to get back at those
> semis on the interstate!
>
> On the wing thing... I will argue with anyone that building the wing
> separately is by far the best way to build the wing. One difference in my
> technique from the gentleman from CT is that I didn't need to cut the
> longerons. What I did was, I built the outer wing panels, but left the
> center spars separate. My jig clamped the center spars in place, as if
> they were in a fuselage. After the wings were built (not the stub wings),
> I removed the wings, inserted the center spars into the fuselage,
> re-installed the wings and controls, glued the spars to the fuselage & then
> built the stub wings on the fuselage. About the only non-plans part of the
> wing is that I had to glue the plywood ribs to the outer panels (at the
> joint), rather than on the outboard part of the stub wings.
>
> Advantages of using the jig include:
> 1) You can build in much less space. For me, the warm, well lit basement
> was much better than my cold, dim, garage.
> 2) No fuselage in the way when leveling the wings, setting washout and
> incidence.
> 3) You can have the wings in 4 different orientations. level, upside
> down, climbing 90% to ground, or descending 90% to ground. Glassing the
> leading edges was a piece of cake as the wings were pointing upwards.
> Installing the aileron spars was also easy as the wing was pointing down.
> 4) I was able to install the sling seat and controls in my basement,
> before disassembling everything and installing the center spars into the
> fuselage.
> 5) I was able to carry the completed wings through a 36 inch door when I
> got done!
>
> I'd be happy to give you more information if you want it. Unfortunately,
> I just cut those jigs up this winter. I needed the steel for another
> project, and figured no one would want to use them as they were getting
> pretty rusty.
>
> Kerwyn
>
> P.S. If you happen to have the newsletters on CD, you can search my name
> for that article. I'm the only Kerwyn... and I've never met another.
>
>
>
> On Friday, January 31, 2014 1:21 AM, Mike T <mctaglieri at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm still trying to decide whether to build a KR-2 or a Thatcher CX4, a
> recent single-seat aluminum LSA design. These two designs aren't as far
> apart as they seem, because a KR-2 can also be LSA compliant. It already
> makes the LSA stall speed if you keep it light, and I could use a smaller
> VW engine (or just adjust the throttle so the carb doesn't open all the
> way) to get it down to the LSA top speed someday. I think the LSA law
> would le me fly the plane fast for now, then slow it down to make it LSA
> compliant if I ever get sick of getting medicals. By contrast, he CX4's top
> speed is 135 mph and the VNE is 155, so it's not even as fast as the
> fastest LSAs.
>
> But whatever plane I build, I want to build it in the living room of my
> house. As I mentioned here before, I have woodworking and metalworking
> machines in the basement, but that doesn't leave room for the plane down
> there. Also I have a garage, but it has no heat and limited electricity,
> and sometimes it's wet. So for much of the year I'd be unable to work
> there, or I'd have to come home from work and fire up a heater for hours to
> warm the garage. But with the plane in the living room, it would be warm,
> dry, and staring me in the face whenever I came in the door, so I'd have an
> incentive to keep working on it every day.
>
> But there's a problem doing this with a KR: The center spar is so long I'd
> never be able to get it out again after the spar was installed, so I'd have
> to move it to the garage after the boat stage. The spar is so long is to
> allow for flaps and wing tanks, which I don't want, but trying to change
> the design of the spar and wings would be way too complicated.
>
> So I was all set to give up on the KR2 (and I even bought plans for the
> CX4) when I saw this article in the KR Newsletter of October, 1984 (#112,
> p. 3). This is a guy who built his wings entirely off the plane. He was
> doing it to make a better wing (and I think he's right). But doing this
> would also solve my problem of getting the plane out the door when it's
> done. And it would make it easier to build the wings exactly alike by
> clamping the center spar to the worktable and building both wings at once.
> (And of course you could flip the spar upside down easily, so you could
> foam, glass, and finish both sides easily). Here's the guy's article,
> between the dotted lines.
>
> -----------------------------------
> Here's a controversial one! I am building my wings *out* of the fuselage,
> on a separate table, in a jig. I believe I will get a guaranteed true
> wing, with the correct washout. This again steals from model-building
> techniques. To be able to do this at all requires a way to remove the wing
> from the fuselage, and to reassemble it to the fuselage after construction.
> You can't obviously, *slide* the wing back into the fuselage spar slots.
>
> Here's what I'm doing. I completely installed the center spars in the
> fuselage *except* that they *aren't glued.* Turning the fuselage onto its
> top, I cut a slot through the bottom of the fuselage so the spars can be
> lifted out, rather than slid out through the sides. When the wing is
> finished, I'll just drop it back into the spar slot. I'll replace the
> lower longerons, which had to be cut to replace the spar slot, by gluing a
> new 5/8 square sub-longeron alongside the one I cut, with a healthy
> overlap, scarf, and plenty of reinforcing glass cloth.
>
> Once the wing is separated in this manner, I can mount the spars on a work
> table and be sure they are jigged perfectly into the correct dihedral,
> washout, etc.
>
> This technique was worked out by my good friend Charlie North, who is a
> licensed A & P, and who feels the end result will be a stronger, more
> accurate finished product. I'll keep you posted on its success.
>
> Bill Thomas
> 9 Pine Acres Drive
> Canton, CT 06019
> --------------------------------------
>
> Me again. So what do people think of this idea, and do you know if anyone
> else has ever done it? Adding longeron and plywood reinforcements after
> replacing the spar would add some weight to the plane, but I don't think it
> would very much.
>
> Unfortunately Bill Thomas didn't keep his promise and never wrote anything
> else about how this worked out. He later had an ad in the Newsletter for
> some unused parts, and years later on KRnet he parted out a KR200 he said
> he finished in 1989. He said this was because he was buying an RV and
> didn't want the liability of selling the KR, but it sounded as though he
> flew it a couple of hundred hours and there was nothing wrong with it.
>
> I'd be interested in hearing people's opinions about this idea, especially
> the opinions of any A&Ps here. (Also, of course, if Bill Thomas or the A&P
> who designed this setup 30 years ago are here, I'd like to hear from you,
> but that seems pretty unlikely at this point).
>
> Mike Taglieri
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