New to Solidworks questions and future plans of dressmaking a plane
Hi everyone.
i thought rather then ask questions first...ill state my goals and then ask questions
What follows is an experiment with an experimental plane....if this has been tried before, please let me know of it's success/failure..
The 4 place all aluminum CH640 has been discontinued due to lack of sales. What I would like to do is build the Ch640 plane to modern industry standards like Vans aircraft/Zenair does with match hole construction, but doing so with a fusion of CNC precision merged with old school bandsaw, disk sander, router table and sweat...
For better or worse match hole construction is the industry standard and what the customer expects to see when they open the box.
The CH640 plans need a freshening up, since the plane can be scratch built a lot of builder frustration can be eliminated if the plans were updated. For a more familiar reference sort of like scratch building a RV-6... it can be done but the plans are first generation
The 4 place CH640 is the experimental version of the certified 2 place Alarus. The Alarus is beloved by flight schools for training. It's a shame to see a good design fade away.....
If this works out, make my efforts available to Zenair/Zenith to share with other builders of this plane
Im thinking that 3 technologies merged could create an easy way to make home brew matched hole construction and give new life to some very good older plane designs. Making them easier to build and assemble at a budget price
1-design the plane in solidworks, all holes and parts marked out
2-print out templates of all parts that can be glued to wood or metal
3-builder cuts/drills/sands the parts as close to the lines as possible
-the use of vellum(plastic paper) to print on as it does not distort and holds its shape much better then paper and can be re-used
-use of very accurate printers like the Hewlett Packard page wide...create CNC accurate printed templates
the experiment here is to see if you hand form an aluminum rib over a hand made wood former....will the holes in the ruder skin line up with the pre-drilled holes in the ribs....I think if you are careful in your creation of your tooling...they will
here is the plan...build the CH640 rudder in Solidworks as proof of concept. All rivet holes pre located like Vans/zenith does.
build the form blocks from templates, cut out and glued to the wood..if careful, a form block could be made to machine shop level accuracy
Then take the vellum print out of the rudder skin rivet pattern, spray tack it to an aluminum sheet and drill the pilot holes for the rivets through the metal.
peel the vellum off the metal and voila...you have just match hole drilled your rudder skin
another interesting thing is the vellum is very tough...if this works you could put 4 or 5 wing skin drill patterns on one vellum print in different colors ...so you re-use the print to do the hole patterns on many different wing/rudder/elevator skins. The spray glue can be wiped off the vellum with a solvent and brought back to new
so now for the questions
has anyone done a how to sheet metal video on aluminum aircraft building with Solidworks ( in particular making a part like a flap or aileron) I'm learning Solidworks and there are plenty videos but not much on actual aircraft construction . Most videos are RC plane type or mock ups that don't go into the nitty gritty of real aluminum plane construction.
I watched the EAA Webinar- Exploring the Zenith CH750 Cruzer Design in SOLIDWORKS. They showed great parts but not how they get designed in Solidworks unfortunately.
Im still learning Solidworks and this has me stumped at the moment..how do you shape a rudder skin over your ribs and spar assembly? I know how to create the skin but not how to radius/bend it over ribs. If someone could direct me what tool or procedure you follow to do that
that's it for now, more questions to follow.
thanks
Michael
