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bexrbetter

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Everything posted by bexrbetter

  1. bexrbetter
    You could say the same for Carbon Fiber too, and yet numerous craft out their with carbon wings/spars. 7075 has 3 times the strength, 3 times the elongation of CF, and most importantly for a wing and spar, massively stronger in compression than CF (all composites are weak in compression), one of the critical factors for material choice in a wing/spar - yet plenty of successful CF winged planes flying, just as there is plenty of highly successful planes flying with 7075T6 wings and spars. The reason: It's called "Engineering", and I assure you I am over-engineered in this area, I am paranoid about 2 things: Wing failure and roll over protection. I can show you 6061 spars that have failed, I can show you wooden spars that have failed, I can show you 2024 spars that have failed ... and I mean under normal conditions. They won't be handling it, spars will be complete. There's other safety measures in place, but when we get there ..
  2. bexrbetter
    Fold shop today .. The Boys at it .. The result .. Dunnya just love pre-matched holes .. Trial fitted the "Bex Rib-Fit System" now patented in Nigeria (got a great deal from some Prince there) The silver speckly stuff is oil based paint, I think it's a good enough anti-corrosion joint sealant. Silver speckly because it's what I had. Oh, and I bit the bullet today and ordered some 7075T6 for wing and HS spars. "Ouch" said my wallet, it ain't cheap, but cheaper than the Titanium I wanted to use, and much cheaper than Carbon Fiber, but fact is I wouldn't know what I was doing with Carbon Fiber anyway, so moot point.. So tomorrow will be a few thousands twists of a drill bit by hand to de-burr, and some trial fit-ups.
  3. bexrbetter
    Fin/VS is 'slab' sided, but LE is of course aero rounded, TE is 'tapered to a point' rudder. Later there will be a slight curvature to the sides of the Fin/VS, but first i wanted to make the part to see how much curvature I could force on it with the 90 degree flange on the bottom. Not everything is shown on the 3D, not everything shown is how it's going to be exactly. The 3D CAD to me is merely a measuring tool, and a very accurate one, as you well know. I actually came back to add an edit but the edit function had timed out (too short a time here Admin) It read.... PS: Graphics are crappy, if you want better, go join a computer CAD group, but for those who want to see a real plane get built, watch this space ...
  4. bexrbetter
    I'm almost ready to jump in and make engine noises! Look at all those lovely pre-matched holes ... ...off to the fold shop tomorrow. .
  5. bexrbetter
    Great writeup Peths, thanks.
  6. bexrbetter
    So Guys, let me introduce to "Bob". Bob is as simple a plane I could figure from all my experiments and investigations over the last number of years. Simplicity, cheap to produce, cheap and very fast to build while encompassing strength and safety. ... and it's wide! Australians and Americans have grown somewhat over the decades, many plane manufacturers just don't seem to have kept up with that fact. One unusual feature with Bob is the staggered cabin to give real world shoulder and arm room to the Pilot and Pax, no more of the upper body 'twist' to avoid rubbing shoulders with your smelly Buddy on the way to grab a hamburger, and somewhere to actually rest your arm. A further bonus is that the stagger is made up of just 4 components, the armrest, the rear fairing, a small filler panel behind your shoulder, and of course the canopy - all 3 components can be widened or narrowed to suit the owner with considerable ease, either during the build or modified later on. ... but it's also just plain wide. The inside is the magic 1 meter, or 39.5", and the shoulder room is over 1200mm or 48". As you have seen, I build what I show, the complete rear fuselage, VS and HS parts have all been cut and waiting for me to get there, and get them to the fold shop. Assembly should start in a few days!
  7. bexrbetter
    Look at the bright side, just think of how much lighter it will be after drilling all those holes!
  8. bexrbetter
    Who? We miss the Drifter Mate. Bloody illegal immigrants, hope you flew them back!
  9. bexrbetter
    Yup, have had the misfortune to have to remove 'old' plastic before that once you get the bulk of it off, you're left with lots of thumb sized bits you need to remove one by one picking at with your fingernails. Drives you crazy.
  10. bexrbetter
    No post for 3 weeks, you ok Franko?
  11. bexrbetter
    Here's maybe a helpful tip for those interested. You see the 4 long rectangular parts that compromise 13 separate parts end to end, and the 8 pyramids at the bottom (that just fit onto the sheet) to be lasered ... Well the reason they are joined like that instead of individual parts is for accuracy in the folding that they will receive later. Folds are done in a brake press and the longer the part, the less percentage of error over the length. So each long rectangle, and those 8 pyramids, will be folded together as one piece, then cut apart with the snips, and all the parts will be very close to being identical. Oh, and the pyramids (gussets) are flipped every 2nd one so i get left and right hand parts automatically after folding.
  12. bexrbetter
    Almost saw sunrise this morning, but worth it because all CNC Laser files finished (for the rear fuselage stage), and 6 sheets dropped into the Laser shop with the file, should see some parts late tomorrow or Wednesday. My biggest headache today was getting the protective plastic film off the 6 sheets, damn they don't make life easy! I tried a free open-source one called Deepnest, let it run for a hour and it was just coming up with stupid results. My method is very simple, I put the biggest parts possible onto a sheet (importantly I design the parts so they can fit onto a 1200 x 2400 sheet in the first place), then try to fit the second biggest part on, if not, then the third biggest and so on. I can't understand why this stupid software doesn't do that and start with the biggest parts first? Here's mine..... .. what I gave to the software to test .. ... and it's best offering after an hour ..
  13. bexrbetter
    Well Ashley, Heinz slipped me a 20 to say something nice ...
  14. bexrbetter
  15. bexrbetter
    Geez that's a nice build Marty, not every Zenith builder can get 0.016" looking that smooth.
  16. bexrbetter
    Non-believer! Heresy, damnation for you!! I actually enjoy it, find the puzzle solving a bit of fun. Strange, because I have always disliked jigsaw puzzles. However, I haven't looked for a few years and noticed a couple of free ones out there, so going to try them and see if they can do better than what I already have.
  17. bexrbetter
    I just noticed this. Well explained except that hightlite the parts you want to create an intersection, then highlite the individual parts, 'Group' them and remove to one side from the assembly. i.e. don't group them first. You will find sometimes it won't cut a pre-group'd part. If you like, you can then right click on a group, 'make component', right click again and 'save' to a separate folder. If you want an assembly saved like that, group all the assembly groups together as one first, then make component, then save, just easier. My favorite unwrap tool is 'Flattery', it gets you everywhere!
  18. bexrbetter
    My bend radius is around 4T so grain isn't an issue. All my sheets have alignment tits or other for the bend shop to line up, saves a lot of time and is very accurate, as indicated in red below Later when my tits are cut off (wait, what?), a relief corner radius is left, as is in the corner of the inverted V bend point.
  19. bexrbetter
    Been used since I was a teenager (late 1970's), and used by our girlfreinds in our social group. We at first critisised them for the 'American' term.
  20. bexrbetter
    Oh, and have a name for the plane at the moment. It was a tough one, but I took in the considerations of my Sino -Australia relationship and America being the key market, the plane type, specs, mission suitable for ect and eventually I came up with the perfect fit ... "Bob". .
  21. bexrbetter
    Man, been putting some hours in, seen sunrise a couple of times. I nested the entire Rear Fuse, HS and VS, then I virtually built the entire assembly again in the software to find the small fitting issues, and there were some, mostly rivet holes not lining up, couple of part sizes not change or moved (or not) at some stages.. And when I say build, starting with flat sheets as if they had just been cut. I folded and fitted them all together piece by piece then modified them if required, transposed to flat sheet, fold again and repeat. There's also the one that used to catch me out a few times years back, and that's creating stuff in 3D as flat material not allowing for the thickness of the material in the real world, and over a few parts, that error can build up quite quickly. So now tonight I celebrate my first sheet of 6 for the in .DXF file ready to go to the laser and fold shop early next week. I tried hard to fit everything onto 5 sheets, but just couldn't, dang narn it!
  22. bexrbetter
    Closer to the French Fauvel AV36, AV45, AV48 ect.
  23. bexrbetter
    And I thought WUA had left us, but looks like the Left are back again.
  24. bexrbetter
    "Leaks like a Sav"!
  25. bexrbetter
    So you're actually making his private life your business by defending his right to his private life, Ying Yang. While not defending Joyce at all, the previous CEO didn't face the onslaught of cheap airfares and numerous start-ups offering them back then. The market sure is a tougher place today to be in. Have you seen the movie with Michael Keating? Explains what happened with the business model mostly.
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