N666RH

Guy comes by the shop hoping to bum me outta some ammo for his machine
gun and finds me stitching a spar together with a gnu-matic brad-
driver & foamy glue. He's okay watching me smear on the glue. And
he's still happy when I put the plywood into place, aligned by a
couple of 3/4" #20 nails previously driven, now with their heads
snipped off. He even helps me clamp it to the bench. But when I
pick up the pneumatic brad-driver and start to stitch he begins to
frown, as if he's never it done before.

"I've never seen it done like that," he sez.

"Saves a buncha time," I say as I shoot 5/8" #18 brads about every
inch and a half. It's the spar for a horizontal stabilizer, sorta-
copied from Pete Bower's 'Fly Baby.' It's about six feet long and
three inches deep in the middle, tapering to an inch and a half at
each end. The spar caps are 3/8" square Western Hemlock, ripped out
of a 2x4. The plywood shear-web is a piece of doorskin; 1/8" Luan.
It's the third one I've built, the first two having been destroyed in
various tests. Not counting the glue and brads, each cost about a
dollar. Plus a few hundred hours of design time.

"Is that an Approved Method?" he asks.

The brads are tacking the assemblage to the work bench, which is
protected by a layer of waxed paper. (Live & lurn :-) I'll leave it
to cure for a couple of days then pry it off, at which time it will
look like hell warmed over. But it cleans up nice with a disk
sander. Then comes some filler blocks to be fitted and interior
varnish before I can apply the closing face, which is left a bit over-
size and malleted down onto the exposed tips of the brads.

"Beats the **** outta me," I tell him. "But it seems to work pretty
good."

"Jesus!" he shouts, jumping back and making the sign of the cross.
"You... you're EXPERIMENTING!"

That's when I turned slowly toward him and smiled, showing him my
pointy teeth and red LED's for eyes. He gave a tiny shriek and ran
off, shouting: "Pope Paul! Pope Paul!"

-R.S.Hoover

Great Bob,
Now don't be too suprised when a package arives with no
return address and 4 cloves of garlic.
Lou

On May 8, 3:56 pm, Lou wrote:
Great Bob,
Now don't be too suprised when a package arives with no
return address and 4 cloves of garlic.
Lou


LMFAO!

OHMIGOD! Hardware store lumber? THATS NOT AIRCRAFT QUALITY! THERE'S NO
CERT STAMPS ON IT! What would Wilbur think?

Kinda reminds me of last weekend. Here in Boulder, CO, spring is a big
deal. It finally stops snowing (sorta), the birds are chirping,
there's coeds in bikinis at the park, all of the mooks go home for the
summer. But just before, there's the annual rite of spring, the KBCO
Kenetics challenge. Its a race, sorta, for kenetic sculptures! There's
a parade the week before that involves a 3 minute-skit and bribes for
all of the judges. Then on the day of the race, its out to the Boulder
Resivoir! The human-powered contraption/sculpture/thingies must
navigate a course that takes them from a beach, over water, down a
dirt road, through a field of prarie dogs, back onto the water, into a
mudhole, over a 4' high dirt berm (conveniently ajacent to said
mudhole) and back to the beach. The sculptures themselves are amazing
in that you will never see a more (or less) impressive collection of
foxed-up junk and garage engineering anywhere outside of that "other"
kenetics fest in California. But some of the ugliest ones seemed to
work the best, proving the fact that you can mate a 17" boat propeller
to a chain-driven lower unit made from a snowblower differential and
keep it working for 4 1/4 miles.

Harry "watch for Dr. Diobolical's Dasterdly Derigi-boat of DOOM! next
year" Frey

www.kbco.com look for the "Kenetics" photos

I admit, I'm a coward.

For my Fly Baby elevator spars I used for-real-certified tight-grained
aviation-grade spruce (bought cheap from an abandoned project), marine-
grade okume (the shipping was more than the wood), and a gloopy mess
of T-88. (It cleans up pretty well with a sander, too.)

Probably cost me three or four times what Bob has in his spars.

Instead of brads I used clamps. What a daredevil, eh? ;-)


On May 8, 2:19 pm, " wrote:
Guy comes by the shop hoping to bum me outta some ammo for his machine
gun and finds me stitching a spar together with a gnu-matic brad-
driver & foamy glue. He's okay watching me smear on the glue. And
he's still happy when I put the plywood into place, aligned by a
couple of 3/4" #20 nails previously driven, now with their heads
snipped off. He even helps me clamp it to the bench. But when I
pick up the pneumatic brad-driver and start to stitch he begins to
frown, as if he's never it done before.

"I've never seen it done like that," he sez.

"Saves a buncha time," I say as I shoot 5/8" #18 brads about every
inch and a half. It's the spar for a horizontal stabilizer, sorta-
copied from Pete Bower's 'Fly Baby.' It's about six feet long and
three inches deep in the middle, tapering to an inch and a half at
each end. The spar caps are 3/8" square Western Hemlock, ripped out
of a 2x4. The plywood shear-web is a piece of doorskin; 1/8" Luan.
It's the third one I've built, the first two having been destroyed in
various tests. Not counting the glue and brads, each cost about a
dollar. Plus a few hundred hours of design time.

"Is that an Approved Method?" he asks.

The brads are tacking the assemblage to the work bench, which is
protected by a layer of waxed paper. (Live & lurn :-) I'll leave it
to cure for a couple of days then pry it off, at which time it will
look like hell warmed over. But it cleans up nice with a disk
sander. Then comes some filler blocks to be fitted and interior
varnish before I can apply the closing face, which is left a bit over-
size and malleted down onto the exposed tips of the brads.

"Beats the **** outta me," I tell him. "But it seems to work pretty
good."

"Jesus!" he shouts, jumping back and making the sign of the cross.
"You... you're EXPERIMENTING!"

That's when I turned slowly toward him and smiled, showing him my
pointy teeth and red LED's for eyes. He gave a tiny shriek and ran
off, shouting: "Pope Paul! Pope Paul!"

-R.S.Hoover