Workshop & Tools

Garage Workshop

My main construction area will be the two-car section of my three car garage. It should give me enough room to build, without feeling overly cramped or worrying about hitting things as I move around.  It also gave me an excuse to do some organization of the space.

Soon there will be tools!

Preemptively in having the idea that I might want to build an airplane in the future I decided to go ahead and do some bench construction. I spent about a half a Saturday making a pair of EAA 1000 Workbenches. Even if I decided not to build the plane these make great all-around garage accessories. Having so much fun building them I decided on Sunday to build a smaller one and put wheels on it.  This will function as my primary tool work bench.  The plan is to hook an air compressor manifold to it and use it as my mobile construction station.  Throughout the process this set up will most likely morph into what's the most efficient and convenient.

Tools

My tool collection is very basic, used primarily for household projects or small engine work on motorcycles and most recently plane interiors.  I have a sufficient set up for electrical things but when it comes to fabricating an airplane I'm starting from scratch.

This week I'm picking up a new Air Compressor from Tractor Supply, waiting to see if it goes on their Labor Day sale.  If I had 220 capability I would have liked to go with a 60, two stage, but the general conscientious is the 30 gal should be fine. I also grabbed about $200 of miscellaneous items from Harbor Freight and Amazon.  People generally give Harbor Freight a bad rap on tool quality but when you're paying $15 for an angle grinder, $2 for a vice and $1 for some scissors... if they break buy some more.

Finally comes the actual plane tools.  I'm going with Cleveland Aircraft Tools  based on referrals from other builders. Reached out to Mike with some questions about specific tools, which tools are great upgrades, what can I do without ect.  For example, if you go with the Pneumatic Squeezer upgrade than you'll do 90% of your dimpling with this so you really don't need a DRDT2 dimpler unless you need it to be quiet. This weekend I worked with one of his associates to finalize the list and I have a few more tweaks and questions but will be pulling the trigger on the tools in the next few days.

Introduction

Who am I?

As with most pilots, the interest in aviation has been around since childhood and my story is no different. Also, like most who don't pick it as a career, I didn't start taking flying lessons until much later.  For me it started in the Spring of 2014 with an initial 'Discovery' flight. After that flight I knew it was something I was interested in. I set a goal of completing my private pilot license within the year. I met the goal of finishing my private in October of that same year.  Wanting to improve my skills and learn more about navigating within the National Air Space I began instrument training in the Spring of 2015, finishing that out before expected just few weeks ago (August 2015).  I've never stopped flying racking up about 185 hours and buying into a partnership on a very nice 1977 172N - N3HQ in the process. I don't imagine I'll stop at Instrument and will dive into Glider, Tail-wheels, Multi and maybe a commercial cert down the line.

Why Blog?

As an individual I'm not overly interested in social media, I don't tweet, Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat. The only online profile I maintain is on LinkedIn, used primarily for personal and professional networks.  This blog will be less about me and more about my progress and most importantly the documentation of building a Vans RV-10 Experimental aircraft. I hope it enhances my learning experience as well as help current or future builders.  My only previous experience documenting a project online was 9 years ago when I built an old school arcade machine (MAME), which I still get emails asking about that project.

Experimental Aircraft?

Truth be told the first time I heard about experimental airplanes the concept didn't set right with me. Being fairly risk adverse I put together a mental risk register of all the bad things that could happen building a plane in your garage.  It's probably a natural reaction to the subject.

Experimental vs Certified airplanes in terms of safety is a highly debated subject.  Is my 40-year-old Certified 172 really safer than a plane than an Experimental aircraft that someone built in their garage?  I found this article fairly insightful on the subject and reinforced my risk mitigation plan of not deviating too far from the standard kit and defiantly use a proven test power plant.. ie Lycoming engine.  Likewise look for experienced builders to come check my progress out and make sure I'm not inadvertently doing something wrong.

Experimental aircraft often have the additional benefits of outperforming their certified counterparts, cost less to own and operate, and can have the latest technology installed for a fraction of the price of installing similar on a certified plane.

Why the Vans RV-10?

Or I suppose the question starts with why go experimental at all? Well N3HQ was a bit of a project plane.  We had her painted, some new avionics installed, and I took on the task of redoing the entire interior. Took me about 3 months and 100 or so hours to redo the plastics, panels, upholstery and a number of other miscellaneous items. It was a learning process and found the aviation community to be extremely helpful.  I found I really enjoyed working on the plane myself.  Any maintenance we do I try to be involved and help the A&P and learn as much as I can.  To me, knowing the plane goes hand in hand with knowing how to fly it.

I went through some mental gymnastics on the build vs buy dilemma.  Typically, you decide what your 'mission' is and buy a plane to match it.  Well my current 172 fits my mission in that it holds 4 people, can go on local flights and longer cross-country flights.  So I had to expand that to more of a 'what do I want' type of question.  I want speed, new avionics, autopilot and safety... Bingo I want a Cirrus SR-22! The hold back on that is that I can't do my own maintenance and am restricted on what I can customize.  On top of that, on paper the RV-10 will out carry, out climb, out perform the SR22 every front for literally a 1/4 of the price.

So RV-10 it is! And this is my journey...