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PIETENPOL PAGE 4
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The Shaving bench, or Horse. Also called a Dumbhead Horse. The head is operated with a foot pedal and clamps the piece to be worked against the raised table,
HEAD
RAISED TABLE
PEDAL
BENCH
The head is clamping the end of a front landing gear leg and is in the process of preliminary shaping with a draw knife. You have to be carefull of the grain direction. The plate hanging on my chest is to steady the near end, aiding control of the cut.
Here is an almost completed, flat angled cut with curled shaving. At this point very thin cuts are drawn. Two spokeshave, a flat based one and a curved based one for the curved ends can be used to smooth the surface flat.
View from the other side with the drawknife sitting in the shavings. Spokeshaves,files and sandpaper will bring it to the final teardrop shape, ready for finishing.
Two views of of the completed legs almost ready for varnish. I'm glueing 1/32" ply gussets to the fuselage end of each one.
First coat of Varnish on the legs. At least two more coats to go
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As soon as the cable bracing is done I can turn the whole thing right side up. I've missed sitting in it and making engine noises.
Finally! The legs are finished and assembled on the fuselage.The cross-brace tubes and cable brackets also. The next job is to makeup the cable bracing.
Well, my order of turnbuckles, cable and fittings arrived from Wick's Aircraft Supply. I left the cable ends long enough to attach a pair of fish scales to the ends with hardware turnbuckles. This way I start out with the same tension on both with the flying turnbuckles having the maximum allowable three threads showing. Next will be squeezing the Nicopress sleeves, cutting off the excess cable and setting the heat shrink covers.(black tubes in the pics.)
What incredible veneers I lucked into!
Well, finally right side up and the control parts are installed. Here we are looking forward to the front stick and rudder bar
Looking down with the front seat removed. To the left is the front stick and torque tube bearing . Center is the rear seater's (pilot's) rudder bar
The rear cockpit. Seat is removed to show the rear double pulley set. No, the string is not there permanently, that will be replaced with 1/8" cable.
Looking foreward with the rear seat in place. The pilot's rudder bar can just be seen through the left leg hole at the top. Once I figure out the control ranges for the rudder, elevators and ailerons, I'll work on building in a set of proper control stops in here
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Two views of the rear stick handle. 1/8" thick leather is stitched on with the stitches toward the front for the fingers to grip. At the top and bottom are stop knots called Turks Heads. Essentialy just a triple braided ring that can be tightened strand by strand until extremely tight and secure. The top one hasn't been completely tightened yet, thus the loose ends sticking out. Finally will be be the finial on top, turned from a nice hardwood
Oops! no pics of the finished product yet.
No more string! The cables are finished and installed from the stick to the bellcrank
Left cable between the front and rear rudder bars. What! No turnbuckles? How'd he do that? Carefully!
The bellcrank is done. Notice that the distance from the shaft to the bottom turnbuckle is shorter than to the top one. This completely eliminates any binding in the system. It operates smoothly throughout the complete range of motion.
Detail of bottom, raised turnbuckle fitting
Left bellcrank bearing. This is a block of UHMW polyethylene bolted to the left upright. I haven't installed shaft collars yet. The Phenolic thing on top is the rudder cable guide
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