Here is a bonus post, for those of you who are seriously into the nitty gritty of fabricating an airplane out of a pile of aluminum and steel. I don’t usually post photos in this much detail because I figure that most people don’t care. If you want more of this sort of thing, post a comment below and I will be happy to oblige. I have lots of photos!
To make the door hinges for my Bede BD-4C airplane, I was given a sheet of steel .125 inches thik. I started by cutting a small rectangle for one piece and drilling a couple of .250 inch holes in it. You can click on any photo to see a larger version.
I have a cut-off saw that I use for chopping up the steel. This is what the piece looked like after I cut the corner out.
I attacked the piece with my grinder and sander and got it close to final form for this photo.
The steel part will get welded to the door frame. The hinge pin will attach the steel part to an aluminum block which will be bolted to the fuselage. Here is the aluminum block, drilled and clamped in place for some measurements.
Here is the steel part, sanded down to final form, ready to be welded to the door frame.
After I tack welded the steel piece to the door frame, it looked like this.
From here, it goes to Steve-the-welder. He will make it good ‘n’ strong and airworthy.
You might also like to read Fabricating Aluminum Hinge Parts.
Great work Art!
Folks need to see this detail. They may be planning to build and don’t understand the detail required. This helps them see it. Thans for doing it.
Thanks for the encouragement, John. I will post more details of fabricating parts. I think of it as “fiddly” work: not hard, just kind of time consuming and actually soothing. It’s very satisfying to spend a few minutes with some tools and a piece of metal and end up with an airplane part. 🙂
Art
If you have any up close detailed photo’s of the rear trim cable connection that would be great!
I do and I will email them to you. I’m glad that you asked.