Aluminum wingtips (what I really want to do with my 2 weeks)
Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:38 pm
I haven't heard from Dave Fife for months, so I've been considering building
my own Hoerner tips. Using hotwire cut foam to make one-off fiberglass tips
would be an option also, but I thought it would be really cool to have an
all metal wing. It shouldn't be that hard really, the trickiest part I think
would be establishing the plane of the upswept end plate so the top and
bottom sheets can be trimmed in the right place. I was thinking of using a
laser that is normal to the desired plane of the end plate that can pivot on
that plane. Once the top and bottom skins were clecoed to the wing with
extra length hanging beyond the desired end plate location you could easily
use the laser to mark the trim lines. There would only be three basic pieces
to each tip; top and bottom skins flat wrapped to the airfoil shape right on
the wing, and the end plate which would be totally flat as described, or you
could put in some under camber (still no compound curve) pretty easily. The
coolest part is that once you had the outline of the three pieces you could
just duplicate them for the other wing and other airplanes, as opposed to
foam and glass where you have to make a plug for both wings. The other
tricky part I guess is joining the three pieces. I was thinking the the
bottom seam being an obtuse angle could use a tab formed from an extra strip
on the bottom of the end plate, using fluting pliers or a shrinker. The
upper seam being much sharper would probably require a separate joiner strip
made from a bent V section. It would require some extreme forming to fit the
top of the airfoil but again, flutes, shrinker and/or notches should do the
trick. This piece would be mostly inside the tip anyway so doesn't have to
be pretty. Landing light cover would be simple flat wrapped Lexan in the LE
section of the tip.
Any thoughts?
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my own Hoerner tips. Using hotwire cut foam to make one-off fiberglass tips
would be an option also, but I thought it would be really cool to have an
all metal wing. It shouldn't be that hard really, the trickiest part I think
would be establishing the plane of the upswept end plate so the top and
bottom sheets can be trimmed in the right place. I was thinking of using a
laser that is normal to the desired plane of the end plate that can pivot on
that plane. Once the top and bottom skins were clecoed to the wing with
extra length hanging beyond the desired end plate location you could easily
use the laser to mark the trim lines. There would only be three basic pieces
to each tip; top and bottom skins flat wrapped to the airfoil shape right on
the wing, and the end plate which would be totally flat as described, or you
could put in some under camber (still no compound curve) pretty easily. The
coolest part is that once you had the outline of the three pieces you could
just duplicate them for the other wing and other airplanes, as opposed to
foam and glass where you have to make a plug for both wings. The other
tricky part I guess is joining the three pieces. I was thinking the the
bottom seam being an obtuse angle could use a tab formed from an extra strip
on the bottom of the end plate, using fluting pliers or a shrinker. The
upper seam being much sharper would probably require a separate joiner strip
made from a bent V section. It would require some extreme forming to fit the
top of the airfoil but again, flutes, shrinker and/or notches should do the
trick. This piece would be mostly inside the tip anyway so doesn't have to
be pretty. Landing light cover would be simple flat wrapped Lexan in the LE
section of the tip.
Any thoughts?
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