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Content tagged 'weld'

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  1. How can I lay a MIG weld bead like this? Is this very thin filler (.025?) and an exceptionally low current setting?

  2. Hello everyone, I'm an early 40ish ToolMaker who has been doing jeeps, hot rods, muscle cars, 4x4s and vintage motorcycles since I was a kid.  I've basically devoted my life to transportation and the ways it all works.  My parents were factory workers at GM and when I was a kid my father was kicking around going in on an airplane with a buddy from work.  I went with him the the airpark and saw the hangers, props wings and dreams.  But even as a small child I knew airplanes were expensive and serious business so I put it in the back of my head until later.  As I got older jeeps and hot rods started finding their way into my life and I spent every dollar on tools, books, classes and understanding how to make it all work.  I didn't have any real cash so I figured I'd get by with pure determination.  A few years later I had a landscape company and one of my clients was a local careflight hanger.  I went to a small airpark every week to mow the grass and watch them hover the local hospital birds but still just wasn't ready.  Too much money not enough time.  Someday when I get old, I'd say to myself.  As I got closer to 40 I started to see things becoming possible that simply were not going to happen for me in my 20's.  I started making okay money and knew it was all over when I found myself with pretty good medical insurance and a small stack in a 401k.  When did I become an old guy, a grown up? I had made some dream level cars and motorcycles happen for myself and now it's time to turn things up a notch.  A few years prior I started watching bush flying videos, not really knowing what I was looking at and back in the early youtube years they didn't really edit and speak in the videos.  The mowing grass days were long gone but I started talking to friends about wanting to fly.  People I've known my whole life would look me dead in the face and say, "Why".  Then I found the kit plane world and when I started talking about wanting to build an airplane and then fly it, they'd say, "you can't do that" or "is that even legal".  I got deeper and by this point a few years had past and I saw some early super cub stuff with Kevin Quinn and then Trent and Tucker and so on. 
    I had been looking at planes so long that being able to make one happen went from around 30 grand to now about 50 grand.  I've never been the kind of guy to just go buy big money nice stuff so I'm gonna stick with building one.  I joined EAA and started kicking around some local meetings.  My first flight in a small plane came last year in a 1939 Waco Cabin Cruiser or Executive.  Then another flight in a 1935 Waco open cockpit.  That was it.  I was secure in the fact that I wouldn't puke or be too scared, which I mostly never am anyway but planes are different you know.   Over the last two years I have dove pretty deep and set my sights on a Murphy Rebel.  But that kitfox still was calling my name.  I remember seeing 1200 series 4's sell for 14 and 16 grand but seems like with each passing day they add about 100 bucks to their value, no thanks to Trent Palmer.  They have become the John Ward built 200K dollar ICON Toyota FJ40 of working mans airplanes. Forever priced out of our hands because some fancy tv shows and some rich guys on Barrett Jackson.  No matter, I like jeeps and early Land Rovers better anyway.  I knew a bit about Avids and that's when I found this site.  It's the original kitfox.  And while the kitfox gets all the girls the Avid has the soul and ideas that lived in the man who turned his dream into a drawing and that drawing into an airplane.  Sounds a bit like Wozinak and Jobs at Apple.  The whole damn story is absolutely fascinating.  All the way to the modern fox style series 5/7 Avids with the pursang and magnum. The various changes seen in the B and C and MKIV models and then the weird side stories and companies that came from it all most notably Just Aircraft.  

    So here I am with a plan and a few cars.  The plan goes like this.  Sell a car worth a chunk of money and buy a Murphy Kit (if they ever come back after covid camp).  When the airframe is done get my hands on a big motor and build it and load the whole shabang up with some gauges and suspension.  Probably have to let go of a few more nice rides to make the finish happen and I just so happen to have a few to spare.  Awesome plan right?  Well until I decided to leave my shop and build my own pole barn.  Rent doesn't make much sense at my age and to be completely honest, it was killing me.  So now the Murphy plan get's pushed back realistically about 3 years until I can raise my own building.  But what about keeping the dream alive?  I have a few smaller projects going in a tiny workshop which will keep me company but it's not flying.  I need to be constantly moving forward so I don't loose steam.  Would be nice to pop on that $3000 dollar MK4 for sale but I don't have a working shop with electric and a hard surface floor.  And well, it's 2,000 miles away from me.  Who am I kidding.  I'd buy it if it was closer and just put a generator out at the old falling down barn and freeze my butt off all winter getting drunk and looking at with my buddies, making different motor sounds as we sit in the seat ""Dood, do the radial noise again"".  But wait....  ...what's this?  Raven plans for 8 dollars.  I know I know you guys are maybe not such big fans of old beat to crap ravens being sold as Avids and asking kitfox money.  I get it.  But I am a ToolMaker a dream creator.  I'm the guy who makes the things that make up the machines that make the things that people buy.  Shocks on your car?  We made the machine that Tenneco manufactures the shocks with.  Brakes on your car, I regularly make details for large BWI builds that ship to manufacturing hubs all around the world and local.  Buildings, stadiums and bridges?  I make the machine that holds the rebar together inside the very concrete infrastructure that is our modern world.  I make the modern world?  Wait what? Okay I'm being a bit much but what the hell, I'm gonna try and build this little airplane using these plans as a base.  My first task is going to be to create each detail, part and system in Soildworks.  This should keep the juices flowing this dark winter. During that time mowing grass I got about half of an engineering lite degree at the local city college.  Mostly cad and design classes.  So what I'm saying is I'm not at all qualified to do any of this.  But I'm just dumb enough to think I can do it and just smart enough to be dangerous if only to my wallet.  Maybe I'll finally get to use those four 16 18 some foot long half inch thick ground and square giant cnc parallels I saved from the dumpster at work.   They are 3x6 iirc and are ground top and bottom and on one side.  Weld jig for the fuselage?  So is this the right place or should I stop all of this madness and just go buy a bunch of aviation magazines and start looking for a beat up old 150 or Taylorcraft.  Maybe wait til I'm 60 and actually have money to spare? Or maybe I just be happy with my few motorcycles and call it good.  Pick me up an old flight jacket and just pretend I'm flying.  Maybe once I get a better look at these plans I'll have an idea but that's where I sit right now as I type on this brand new disco lit gaming pc with not a single program installed but Solidwords 2020 and a couple 8 dollar PDF files on my phone.  Behind me sits an HTP invertig 221 tig welder and outside in small building sit two Bridgeport's and an old Southbend lathe.  Plug in the printer and start welding! TITAINIUM EVERYTHING!
  3. I am in the process off adding a 13 gallon wing tank to my left wing.  I am wondering if it use RTV or Hysol to attach the tank to the spars before fiberglass wrap.