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For those forming ribs with the press or hybrid methods, the 20 ton press and jack setup from Harbor Freight does a great job, and is on sale thru at least the next week as part of HF's extended parking lot sale. With the coupons out this week, $309 for press and jack ... need to add two 3/4" x...

All these airplanes on wheels, etc. very impressive and inspirational. Just wrapped up all 160 ribs for the Patrol and starting to get stuff done on stiffeners/moving on the wing spars. Did a quick jig to get the nose rib stiffeners laid out and a bushed phenolic drill jig to do the stiffeners...

I think this rib trimming thing is one of those processes where there must be tons of options that actually work... I've seen a couple so far, and they all produce an accurate trim. After toasting one or two blanks getting to an airworthy nose rib, I trialed a tablesaw method on 1/8" and 1/4"...

Flange Straightening After Pressing & Flow Forming - I fluted immediately after pressing on the nose ribs and nose section of the tip ribs, then worked with the VAF-style flange straightener around those flutes. A pair of modified Channel Lock 317 long nose pliers with about half the snout...

Tooling and Process – Form Blocks - I started off using single-layer MDF press blocks for everything and only building up two-layer blocks for flow forming, but found that – while that worked really well for the lightening hole flanges - the edge flanges needed more block depth as well as a...

Tooling – Press Stack and Materials - The HF 20 ton press with the usual mods (HF hydro-pneumatic 20 ton jack add-on, ¾” press plates, HD locking casters, press plate suspension system, etc.) works well for the press job. A 50 ton press with a full-sized rubber press set-up would be better, but...

Prep for Rib Pressing: - After routing, all of the straight/gentle curve edges were cleaned up with a chalked 8” and 10” mill bastard file (I used a sharp 8” US-made Nicholson file and clean every few ribs with a file card…chalking helps), 320 sandpaper on a quarter-sheet-sized block (18mm...

Process for Routing Rib Blanks: - Roughing out blanks was straightforward – just snip work after the rough processing of the 4x8 and 4x12 .020”, .025”, and .032” sheet stock into more manageable sizes with track saw and tablesaw. I optimized layout with a half scale set of templates and got at...

I like After Action Reviews… they are usually structured something like: “What was supposed to happen, what did happen, good stuff, bad stuff, and how to make the ‘supposed to’ and ‘did’ line up next time.” I consider these reviews to be just as important to a homebuilding project as a military...

After 45 years watching professional maintainers do their job in the hanger, on the flight line, and in the field, I spent some time recently looking for the sort of small, 3 to 5 drawer maintenance carts I used to see parked next to where the work was located. Harbor Freight has been selling a...

Probably old hat and covered in numbers vids, etc., but if roughing out lightening holes with a fly cutter seems daunting, and tin snips is a little tough on the smaller nose rib and aileron and flap blanks, an air nibbler does a quick job of removing the material to within a 3/16" or so of the...

Just got the revised pocket rib out of the press and cleaned up... definitely less distortion in the notches with move of the notches a little deeper into the rib. Feeling good enough about these to rout the remainder and press them off.

This is what I mean about some of the details being sketch-level versus accurate 3-view... it can lead to some interesting discussions ;-). This is a full-scale drawing, so the double line is the edge-view of the 0.020" flange. The flange bend radius is 0.1", so has to extend that distance...

Thanks for your time and the look. At the sketch-level of detail, I agree, but note that with the interior bend radius added at the aft edge and underside (this is the current Patrol plan, seemingly identical in terms of flange notch layout to the LSA you posted), the 3/16" base diameter notches...

Working through all the rib routing and pressing/forming the extras to get the process debugged before committing to numbered parts. May be nothing, but seems like the flange notches should start a little deeper into the rib to avoid what seems to me to be a compound bend. These ribs seem to...

I believe I have the wing spars and flap stuff sorted for my Patrol scratch-built project, but any consensus from the group on a small (50" or less) shop brake for all of the sheet metal work that happens after the spars are done? Seems like a lot of stuff that a smaller tabletop bending brake...

Plan set P471 arrived last week from Bob, and acquiring knowledge base, materials and tools/tooling for a scratch-built Patrol. Job 1 was QC on plans changes and a couple warmup projects - a little tin-bending/forming and catching up on my neglected CAD skills with a virtual Fusion 360 wing...