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Hi everyone,
Yesterday, I noticed that "Planes" was on the television, so I took that as an opportunity to use that as some inspiration to straighten out some ribs after recently flanging them. So I grabbed a couple stacks of nose ribs and brought them up to the living room with me.
For this first batch, I used a pair of duck-bill pliers as recommended by another member, wrapped in several layers of masking tape to keep from marring the metal. It worked great, but boy were my hands tired afterward. That's a lot of squeeze-and-twist.
So, today, as I'm pondering how I can improve this process, since I've got a lot more ribs to go (two airplanes worth), I said, "There's got to be a better way". Others have suggested that the bobstick is a more comfortable way to make these adjustments. After doing a search for places to get Delrin rod, I noticed that Fastenal apparently sold the stuff. Great! So I drove down to my local shop and asked them about it. They looked at me like I was an alien. They could order it, but there wasn't a store anywhere in America that even had any in stock. Fabulous. I could drive a couple of hours to the nearest plastics supplier, but I thought I'd try something a little different.
I went down to my local hardware store, and they had a cheap plastic-coated fiberglass hammer for $5 on the clearance table. So I said to myself, what's the worst that could happen? I picked it up, brought it home, and beheaded the beasty on the band saw. I then cut a nice little slot in it, and went to work on one of my ribs. It couldn't have worked out any better if I'd planned it! Now I have a nice "ergonomic" bobstick with soft rubber handle, lots of leverage, and beautifully flat ribs to go with it.
~Chris
Yesterday, I noticed that "Planes" was on the television, so I took that as an opportunity to use that as some inspiration to straighten out some ribs after recently flanging them. So I grabbed a couple stacks of nose ribs and brought them up to the living room with me.
For this first batch, I used a pair of duck-bill pliers as recommended by another member, wrapped in several layers of masking tape to keep from marring the metal. It worked great, but boy were my hands tired afterward. That's a lot of squeeze-and-twist.
So, today, as I'm pondering how I can improve this process, since I've got a lot more ribs to go (two airplanes worth), I said, "There's got to be a better way". Others have suggested that the bobstick is a more comfortable way to make these adjustments. After doing a search for places to get Delrin rod, I noticed that Fastenal apparently sold the stuff. Great! So I drove down to my local shop and asked them about it. They looked at me like I was an alien. They could order it, but there wasn't a store anywhere in America that even had any in stock. Fabulous. I could drive a couple of hours to the nearest plastics supplier, but I thought I'd try something a little different.
I went down to my local hardware store, and they had a cheap plastic-coated fiberglass hammer for $5 on the clearance table. So I said to myself, what's the worst that could happen? I picked it up, brought it home, and beheaded the beasty on the band saw. I then cut a nice little slot in it, and went to work on one of my ribs. It couldn't have worked out any better if I'd planned it! Now I have a nice "ergonomic" bobstick with soft rubber handle, lots of leverage, and beautifully flat ribs to go with it.
~Chris
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