Posted by Jack on in Fabrication, Flight

EAA Sheet Metal Class

Recently I took a class hosted by the EAA at the Aviation Institute of Maintenance. This class fills up quick and I had to sign up last fall for this spring spot. The first few hours of the class Saturday were sheet metal and rivet theory taught by the instructor Jack Dueck. After that we dove straight into our project for the rest of the weekend: fabricating a mock-up of a wing assembly.

The idea was to learn various sheet metal techniques: Forming, match drilling, solid riveting with a squeezer and gun, back riveting, flush riveting, etc. The project is well designed to have a mix of most techniques.

This former C150 was one of the many training tools they had at the school.
Here I am about half way through the project. The skin on this side is all flush riveted.
This is the finished wing section, with built in access port. On the left is another practice part we made to try various techniques.
The top skin was all flush riveted on. Upon completion of the part and a critique, the instructor signed the part.
Posted by Jack on in Design, Flight

Recycled Note Pad

While doing a quick project at Umea Institute of design, I came across an interesting fact: aluminum can be recycled indefinitely and 66% of current recycled aluminum dates as far back as 1886.

I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if you could have an object like a notepad for flying made of aluminum recycled from a historic plane. That’s how this idea started.

The concept for the notepad was to be fully enclosed with a lid that would flip over to the bottom and a cam lever on the right that would lock it into place. At the top is also a storage hole for an integrated pen.

Here are some renders of the concept. It is a simple faceted design, which includes a laser engrave of a historic war bird to connect the material to the history. The mechanical latch and matching pen also draw on the mechanical past history of the aluminum.

Posted by Jack on in Design, Fabrication, Uncategorized

Silverware Drawer Organizer

My dad was in town a little while ago and we were trying to think of a fun project we could bang out in a day. Since we moved into our house we just had a plastic silverware organizer that didn’t fit the drawer very well. We used “project oak” from the hardware store and got it done in a day.

Started off with a CAD model in Solidworks. Might seem overkill and not worth the time, but its worth it for the drawing.
A Baseline dim’ed drawing is great, makes all the cuts super easy.
Cutting some wood
..and gluing it together
We left the bottom open so we could use this non-slip material
loaded and ready to go
Posted by Jack on in Flight, Race, Uncategorized

Reno Air Racer

I was thinking about building an air racer for the Sport category for the National Championship Air Race in Reno, NV. In this category home built experimental aircraft are pushing 450pmh+

One of the fastest aircraft in this category is the Glasiar Legacy. Seen above. I think its a really nice looking airplane, but could use a few tweaks, this is where I made a few sketches.

The top image is my take on a modified Glasair Legacy. The center image is a standard Legacy I used as an underlay. The bottom image is a P-51C 10th Air Command Fighter with a cool livery I used for inspiration.

Posted by Jack on in Car, Fabrication, Race, Rally

Mazda 323 GTX Stage Rally Car

Back when I lived in Portland, I raced a stage rally car. It was a 1984 Mazda 323 GTX: the 4WD turbo very rare variant of the Mazda 323. I raced the car in Washington State in 2009. Later I sold it and bought a Rabbit rally car I should probably make a separate post about.

I bought the car already preped for rally and it had been raced, but the prep was pretty quick and dirty, I re-preped the interior extensively.