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I was almost ready to cry at the beautiful sight before me - the last pile of assorted, unknown hardware from all the unmarked totes hung in the paintbooth, in a wonderful green, ready to be put together in wing form.
Before I could pop a bottle of champagne at the wonder and joy with having everything ready to assemble, my IA looked around, and casually said, "Where are the control cables?
I then was almost ready to cry for a completely different reason. Further digging finally revealed control cables, underneath a ziplock bag of hardware of dubious value, with more parts attached. Looking at the parts coated in equal measure chipped yellow paint and grime, and my shoulders sagged - obviously, I missed something important on the giant roundup of Things To Be Beadblasted. I'm a pilot - why did it never cross my mind that I hadn't accounted for the control cables yet?
My IA unscrewed one end of the thing attached to the bell crank, introduced me to the lingo of center punch versus drift punch, and tapped inside the long tube formerly attached to the bell crank by a stud with threads on one end and a ball on the other. A shiny and grimy cylinder popped out, and he proscribed brake-clean and bead-blasting for the painted parts. At the second one, he paused, and pointed out how one end looked more like petals on a flower than a threaded tube. "This one's beyond patching. Find another."
So now I'm back, metaphorical hat in hand, asking where I might find one of those. For starting with no knowledge and a pile of almost completely disassembled 1941 BL12-65 parts, I'm making good progress - but sometimes all the knowledge I've gained is merely that I need to ask what the part is properly called, where to find a replacement, and if there's more I should know about its installation.
And I'm going to start sliding my repaired ribs onto my nice new spars, though certainly not nailing them on yet. I'm certain I can make some progress on placement of ribs and compression struts while trying to figure out the control cable parts!
Before I could pop a bottle of champagne at the wonder and joy with having everything ready to assemble, my IA looked around, and casually said, "Where are the control cables?
I then was almost ready to cry for a completely different reason. Further digging finally revealed control cables, underneath a ziplock bag of hardware of dubious value, with more parts attached. Looking at the parts coated in equal measure chipped yellow paint and grime, and my shoulders sagged - obviously, I missed something important on the giant roundup of Things To Be Beadblasted. I'm a pilot - why did it never cross my mind that I hadn't accounted for the control cables yet?
My IA unscrewed one end of the thing attached to the bell crank, introduced me to the lingo of center punch versus drift punch, and tapped inside the long tube formerly attached to the bell crank by a stud with threads on one end and a ball on the other. A shiny and grimy cylinder popped out, and he proscribed brake-clean and bead-blasting for the painted parts. At the second one, he paused, and pointed out how one end looked more like petals on a flower than a threaded tube. "This one's beyond patching. Find another."
So now I'm back, metaphorical hat in hand, asking where I might find one of those. For starting with no knowledge and a pile of almost completely disassembled 1941 BL12-65 parts, I'm making good progress - but sometimes all the knowledge I've gained is merely that I need to ask what the part is properly called, where to find a replacement, and if there's more I should know about its installation.
And I'm going to start sliding my repaired ribs onto my nice new spars, though certainly not nailing them on yet. I'm certain I can make some progress on placement of ribs and compression struts while trying to figure out the control cable parts!
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