---------------------------------------------------------- Zenith640-List Digest Archive --- Total Messages Posted Sat 08/02/08: 1 ---------------------------------------------------------- Today's Message Index: ---------------------- 1. 10:29 PM - Re: 640 Builders Check-In (SteveCH640) ________________________________ Message 1 _____________________________________ Time: 10:29:00 PM PST US Subject: Zenith640-List: Re: 640 Builders Check-In From: "SteveCH640" 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Matronics Email List Services ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post A New Message zenith640-list@matronics.com UN/SUBSCRIBE http://www.matronics.com/subscription List FAQ http://www.matronics.com/FAQ/Zenith640-List.htm Web Forum Interface To Lists http://forums.matronics.com Matronics List Wiki http://wiki.matronics.com Full Archive Search Engine http://www.matronics.com/search 7-Day List Browse http://www.matronics.com/browse/zenith640-list Browse Digests http://www.matronics.com/digest/zenith640-list Browse Other Lists http://www.matronics.com/browse Live Online Chat! http://www.matronics.com/chat Archive Downloading http://www.matronics.com/archives Photo Share http://www.matronics.com/photoshare Other Email Lists http://www.matronics.com/emaillists Contributions http://www.matronics.com/contribution ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These Email List Services are sponsored solely by Matronics and through the generous Contributions of its members.