I have spent the last three sessions (spaced out over more than a week, since rehearsals for Nunsense took priority over the BD-4C for awhile) building the brackets which will attach the push-pull rod to the anti-servo tab on the trailing edge of the horizontal stabilator. If that’s all gobble-de-gook, never mind. Just read on and enjoy the pictures. (As always, you can click on any of the pictures to see a larger version.)
The TS-16 brackets are tricky, at least for a sheet metal novice like me, since all I have are drawings on paper but I have to fabricate the brackets out of 2″ x 2″ aluminum angle 0.063″ thick. This stuff is light and rigid so there is sure no way to flatten it out to cut it and then rebend it. Next time around, I will have a better idea what I am doing but this time I started by mocking up one of the parts by cutting up a cardboard box. In this photo, I am test fitting an HS-7 rib inside the HS-6 anti-servo tab skin and my mocked-up TS-16 bracket to the bottom.
My next step was to paste copies of the drawings onto the 2×2 angle so that I could transfer the shape to the metal so that I could do a rough cut.
The two brackets need to be 0.44″ apart to properly hold the rod end. I took a piece of wood, sanded to be 0.44″ thick, and bolted it between the two rough cut brackets.
I sanded the brackets to their final shape and deburred and ended up with these:
Finally, it was time to fit the brackets, ribs, and skin together. I thought that I had a good method which would keep everything aligned properly.
Here are a couple of pictures so you have some idea what I am trying to build.
Unfortunately, my scheme did not work. I had the ribs misaligned and the holes in the ribs are messed up. I will be rebuilding the ribs and trying Plan B for keeping everything aligned. If you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
