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1. 10:29 PM - Re: 640 Builders Check-In (SteveCH640)
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| Subject: | Re: 640 Builders Check-In |
Stating the facts and nothing but the facts. Good and Bad.
The lower rudder skin was bent during shipping. Zenith did offer to replace it.
I decided to try to fix it my self. If it didn't work then ask for a replacement.
I got the kink out just grate.
The lip on the third rib up appeared to be bent wrong. If I put the rivets in
the middle of the rib lip and to the mark on the spar, the rib flanges were too
high for the skin rivets. I cracked the lip trying to bend a kink in it to
lower the rib. Made some tools and made a new rib to the drawing spec's. It fit
much better.
The lower rudder skin had a 1/2 inch radius on the trailing edge. It was supposed
to go into the upper skin. The upper skin had a 1/8 inch radius.
This is unacceptable quality. I had to spend a tremendous amount of time to
expand one radius and shrink the other. Basically I spent a lot of time making
special tools to un-crimping one radius and crimp the other. It would have been
quicker to crimp correctly from flat sheets.
The lower rudder skin had some pre-drilled holes on the top edge against the #3
rib. The top skin goes over the lower skin, so how are you supposed to see or
use these holes when they are covered by the top skin. Also I had to mark their
location and with lines coming out from under the skin so I didn't drill partially
into them.
The dimension inside the spar doublers was 116 mm. The lower rib was 119. Lot's
of bending to get 119 mm into a 116 mm space. There were a few other problems.
Figuring out what the problems were and figuring out how to solve it took a lot
of time. Making tools and fixing or making new parts took even more time. It
was about 30 hours of problem solving. After that it was 16 hours to assemble
the, now correct, parts. A tremendous amount of time just for the rudder. Extrapolating
this rudder time out, the whole plane should only take 10,000 hours.
:>)
I wanted a kit I could assemble in a reasonable amount of time. I wanted to carefully
measure, drill and rivet and have an airplane. Buying the rudder parts
and following the instructions didn't work very well.
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=196242#196242
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