Who's in Wisconsin? AH meetup at Oshkosh?

[JHerne]

Kinda looks like an all-terrain Citabria! 

You're building one now? How far along are you?

J

[Shuffler]

Would be great to make this show. Have never been. This is not the year though. Yall have fun.

[VonMessa]

Kinda looks like an all-terrain Citabria!  

You're building one now? How far along are you?

J

It's a pretty stout a/c, for sure  

How far along?  Not very  

I've been busy since the Smithy arrived...

I've been making a lot of tooling to shave time off of the actual build such as flanging dies, form blocks, etc but the last month I have been mostly making stuff for my Wrangler    

Soon, it will be too cold to do any serious wheeling that doesn't involve ice, so I will have to fight the urge to make improvements on the brewery and get crackin' on the plane again (or clone myself).

I've got 2 rolls of 2024-T3 (.025 and .032) and all of the wing steel, but there is just no way I'm going to be flanging the lightening holes on all 170 wing ribs by hand, nor bend the wing steel by hand.  I'm almost finished making my press brake and after that, I'll be making a fishmouth jig for notching the tubing.   I was a tool & die maker in a former life and can't imagine NOT having tools to form the parts.  I know some guys do it ALL by hand, but I do not have that kind of patience.  I want speed and repeatability.  (that way I can have the wife and kids help and still get good parts  )

I haven't updated the log for a while, either.      http://www.mykitlog.com/VonMessa

It's amazing the projects that can distract you, once you have a lathe in the basement.    

I was supposed to go to the EAA weekend with one of the guys in my chapter, but the field was a swamp and he drove, instead.  I don't travel well in a car for that long with someone else driving  

[JHerne]

I hear ya, this year was brutal. Was ok if you thought to bring hip-waders. It dried out later in the week, but when I got there on Tues morning the North 40 was basically underwater. Last year there were easily 300-400 spam cans in that area alone.

This year they were parking aircraft anywhere they could. Definitely put a damper on the event.

J