Bob Hoover's Blog

2010-08-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

It is my sad duty to tell all of you who read Bob's blog that Bob passed away this past Friday, August 13. How much he will be missed is incalcuable. Thank you all for all the support you have given him. I'm his wife. He was a great man.

Thinking Small

2010-06-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

To All:

Some days ago I posted a short message to this blog to which a number of you responded. Alas, in most cases the response was not a good match for the topic, in that most of the responses dealt with other subjects. Indeed, the majority dealt with the use of wood from the lumber yard as opposed to Spruce from an aircraft materials supplier, and the general theme was that I should not encourage people to build their airplanes out of scrap lumber.

Which is good advice.

But the use of scrap lumber is justified when you are trying to learn how to set up your saw, or fit pieces into a jig, or nailing those pieces together to form a side of the fuselage. Indeed, it is important for you to consider scrap lumber as a valuable tool.

As a point of interest this method of fabrication is known as the de Havilland Method. That is, side-frames are fabricated in a jig to ensure their accuracy. The side-frames are then plated with plywood to provide shear strength, then a left & right side-frame is assembled to form the 'box' of the fuselage.

You can expect the typical fuselage to be from twelve to 20 feet in length and one of the trickier bits is to ensure the side-frames are perfectly parallel to each other. That is, that they form a perfect square or other figure the designer may have called out. And to hold the sides square you are going to need lots of scrap sticks and pneumatically-driven pins.

This is also a good time to check the alignment of your gluing, in that once it is stapled or pinned it's not going anywhere.

The product of your labor is a copy of the real fuselage. Add some utility wheels to give the thing mobility and use it as your test module for the other fabrication steps. Of course, the copy is fabricated from materials obtained at the local lumber yard. Which brings us back to the question of Sitka Spruce versus just about anything else.

What we keep running into here is the ASSUMPTION that 'aviation-grade' lumber automatically means Sitka Spruce. It doesn't. Indeed, more than two dozen woods have been identified as suitable for aircraft construction.

-Bob Hoover

Staying Alive

2010-06-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

For those of you having an interest in my my health, I am doing extremely well. I believe I am doing equally well with regard to the little airplane toward which I have been devoting my spare time. Of the two topics I prefer to focus on the airplane. For those of you having a more specific interest in my cancer, please contact me directly at doyleshoover@yahoo.com. Personally, I've more interest in aviation than cancer for the simple reason that I seem to be able to make more progress with the airplane than with the cancer.

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Those of you who have attempted fabrication of some of Chugger's components have discovered that the fuselage is divided into three sub-sections, allowing you to work on the controls. firewall, wing pylon, cockpit and tail-wheel without getting involved in the other sections.

-Bob Hoover

Casting Lead Bullets

2010-02-17T15:18:00.000-08:00

17 February 2010

First, a bit of background.

For a given distance from the center of the Earth, the attraction of gravity is virtually constant. If we use the surface of the sea as that distance, the force of gravity will be the same at Bombay, San Francisco or Narvik. There's some minor anomalies here & there -- there are a few crazy places on our planet where water actually does flow uphill -- but for all practical purposes we think of gravity as constant because it usually is.

If you raised a mass some distance above that surface then released it, it would take a certain amount of time to fall to earth. In fact, even if you threw the mass from you it would still fall to earth in the same amount of time, so long as your throw was perfectly horizontal. (If your throw happened to be slightly upwards then the object would take slightly longer to reach the earth.) Indeed, rather than simply dropping or throwing the object, let's say you hurled the object from you as fast as a speeding bullet or a rocket ship, the same rule applies: the object will take the same amount of time to reach the surface, the only difference being how far it travels before touching the ground.

I've mentioned this here because understanding the gravitational constant is fundamental to understanding the details of ballistics. The gravitational constant dictates the flight path of your bullet. To have the bullet fly straight to the bullseye, you want it to fly there as fast as possible, since the shorter the flight time, the less time gravity will have to influence the downward motion of the bullet. But the faster the bullet travels, the greater the chance it won't travel in a straight line. Aerodynamic forces will cause the bullet to tumble. Before we can take advantage of firing at a higher velocity we need to come up with some method of stabilizing our bullets. The way we do that is to spin the bullet, taking advantage of Newton's laws of motion, specifically,the fact that a body in motion will tend to remain in motion until something comes along and changes it. So how fast is our bullet spinning? And just how fast is it traveling down-range? I thought you'd never ask :-)

If we were talking about a muzzle-loader, it's rifling would be on the order of one turn every four feet or thereabouts, and it's muzzle velocity would be about a thousand feet per second. But if we were talking about a modern, post WWI rifle,the twist would be about one turn every ten inches and the muzzle velocity would be almost three times as fast as the muzzle loader, typically around 2700 feet per second.

One turn in four feet (for our muzzle loader) and an initial velocity of 1000 fps means out bullet -- in this case a lead ball -- is spinning 250 times per second as it leaves the muzzle. That's fifteen thousand rpm. More would be better but even 15,000 rpm is pushing it when dealing with a lead projectile because lead simply isn't very strong. Try to spin it any faster and it will simply shear-off where the lead engages the lands of the rifling. A modern weapon, with a rate of about one turn in every ten inches (0.83 feet) and a muzzle velocity of 2700 feet per second has our modern copper jacketed bullet spinning nearly 200,000 rpm. Now we're talking some serious spin -- and a superbly stable projectile.

With a spin-stabilized bullet, a modern firearm is capable of putting ten shots through the same hole in a target a mile away. But that brand of accuracy is very expensive, with each shot costing several dollars.

The more we practice our shooting... the more bullets we fire... the more accurate we will become. On average, the difference between a marksman and a Life Master is about 250 bullets per week. That is, if it takes you fifty practice shots per day to become ...and maintain... your skill as a marksman, doubling that amount of practice will turn you into a Life Master... an Expert Marksman. The problem here is the cost.

By reloading our own bullets we can reduce the cost per shot from over a dollar per shot to something significantly less, the exact amount depending on the price of the primer and powder. We will re-use the brass cartridge case and cast our own bullets. Even so, the lead needed for the bullets reflects significant cost, so what we'll do is begin with used wheel weights.

A wheel weight, as used for balancing tires, is typicaly 95% to 97% lead. Tin and antimony are used to harden the lead but it is the lead that is crucial here. The velocity of our bullet is a function of its mass and the power of the explosive charge that drives it from the barrel. Once the bullet is free of the barrel, the shape of the bullet has considerable effect but right now we're only interested in what is known as interior ballistics -- the stuff that happens before the bullet leaves the barrel. (Once the bullet flys free, it's characteristics are referred to as exterior ballistics.)

The nice thing about old wheel weights is that they are inexpensive. Indeed, many gas stations and tire shops don't bother to recycle them and may even give them away. But for most of us, paying two-bits a pound is more the norm.

We need to know the weight (or mass) of our cast bullets in order to select a suitable powder charge. This is one of those cases where no guessing is allowed, since an error can result in a damaged firearm or even worse, a damaged gunner.

Once you have a batch of old wheel weights, typically five to ten pounds, you melt them down and cast them into ingots of known volume. By accurately weighing the ingot you can determine what percentage of their weight is not lead. You then re-melt the ingots, adding enough pure lead to correct the mass.

Melting lead or any of its alloys is fairly simple because it melts at such a low temperature -- pure lead melts at 621.5 F, which means you don't need much in the way of smelting equipment to turn wheel weights into ingots. Indeed, a few charcoal briquettes provides more than enough heat to melt ten pounds of lead, although a kitchen stove is more convenient and an electrically-powered smelting pot like the one shown in the photo is the most convenient of all.

Once the content of your lead has been adjusted the metal is typically re-cast into ingots of convenient size, typically of 1/2 lb, 1 lb and 2 pound weight. This makes for easy storage and casting.

I reload ammo for eleven different calibers, not including the balls I use in several black-powder firearms. The distinction here is that cartridges are usually not made up for black-powder weapons. Unlike modern smokeless powder that is virtually inert, chemically, black-powder can be extremely corrosive, making it unwise to pre-load it into cartridges or even into your firearms, until just prior to its being used. But modern smokeless powder can be used safely after twenty or more years.

The 'grain' is the usual unit of measure for the mass of a bullet and there are 7000 grains to a pound. The bullet for a small pistol may weigh less than 100 grains whereas a large slug for a blackpowder rifle might weigh more than 25ogr. The 9x18 Makarov uses a bullet weighing about 95 grains or about 73 bullets to a pound of wheel weights.

CASTING BULLETS

To cast a bullet we first need a bullet mold. If you are a machinist you can make your own molds but most most people -- including machinists -- prefer to buy their molds from dealers who offer reloading supplies. In the photos you will see some of the many molds I use. The sprue hole of the mold is pressed against the spout of the melting pot and the lever is raised, allowing molten lead to flow into the mold. You may cast as many as six bullets at a time although two is the most common number.

When the mold is filled you release the lever, allow a few moments for the lead to cool, then give the sprue-cutter a sharp rap with a wooden maul. Cutting off the sprue frees the bullet from any over-flow of lead,whilst opening the mold allows the bullet to drop free. The freshly cast bullets are then collected, ready to be coated with lubricant. The lubricated bullet are passed through a sizing die which swages them to a precise diameter, such as .357" for 38 Special, or .356" for 9mm Luger. But the 9x18 Makarov bullet is actually 9.22mm or about 0.363". To produce a bullet of the proper size it is customary to begin with a cast slug at least 0.365" in diameter; to lubricate the exterior and to then pass the cast slug through a set of swagging dies to produce a bullet of the desired diameter.

-R.S.Hoover

A Very Good Day

2010-02-13T18:49:00.000-08:00

Since being diagnosed with multiple myeloma good days have become rather rare around the Hoover household; rare enough so that when one occurs I often feel the need to share it... with today being a nice example.

I have guns all ovet the house and I wear one whenever doing so is not only practical but legal. But simply having a firearm is of little use if you are not qualified to use it. The only way I know to maintain your abilities with a firearm is use one. That means firing it frequenty; ideally, every day.

The pistol I'm wearing is a Makarov. It uses the 9x18 Makarov cartridge, which is NOT the same thing as the Short Lugar... which is ALSO 9x18. To develop and maintain my proficiency calls for burning a lot of powder. Unfortunately, Mak ammo is fairly expensive. Normally, I wouldn't pay much attention to the cost since I reload my own ammo, and while the 9x18Mak isn't commonly available, as a low velocity pistol round it's dead simple to reload. So that's what I've been doing but using LEAD bullets instead of better quality jacketed slugs.

Today I turned 10+ pounds of wheel-weights into 11+ pounds of lead alloy suitable for bullets. You can't use wheel-weights straight off because they contain a tad too much antimony and not quite enough lead. So you melt the wheel-weight into 1/2lb ingots then figure out how many #00 buckshot must be added to each half-pound. Melt that together and you've got a suitable alloy for Makarov pills.

Shells aren't a problem because regular 9mm brass, using Boxer-type primers, can be used in the Mak once the casing is trimmed to the proper length. This allows the use of Small Pistol primers and regular 9mm brass, which when combined with an accurately cast lead bullet, brings the cost of maintaining your proficiency within reason for even the most cash-strapped marksman.

The fact everything worked out okay is one of the reasons today was an especially good day. The other reasons have to do with a new refrigerator, in that our old refrigerator was too short for three people, the new number of residents at the Hoover household.

To install a larger refrigerator called for removing the cabinetry above the old refrigerator. Once it was removed we needed to shorten the existing cabinet. The main problem with doing so was the fact the kitchen has a dropped ceiling and the fact I can no longer raise my arms over my head. Fortunately, the new permanent resident is our daughter, who proved to be a Terror when handed a Skilsaw... or any other other tool of mass destruction.

How high was the needed adjustment? One half of an inch. How long have we worked on it? Several days. But today brought all the bits together so that all that remains is to put the new cabinet in place.

Finally, the best news -- and justification for any Special Day... it was just thirty-three years ago today that June Carol Yates became my bride. I love her still, as she does me.

-R.S.Hoover

Solved! - A Standard Engine for Homwbuilts

2010-02-03T09:07:00.000-08:00

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when DuraFix altered the alloy of their aluminum brazing rod. The new rod allows us to apply the Fat Fin modification without fear that the extended fins would crack

For those who have not followed the development of this engine, it' specs are as follows:

2332cc displacement (142cid). That is, a perfectly 'square' engine having a bore AND stroke of 84mm. Rod length is 142mm (5.6"). Compression ratio is 8.5:1.

( - 13 February 2010 -
My thanks to the several of you who caught this error. The 'square' engine would b 84 x 84... or perhaps 94x94... but it would NOT be 84x94. [My interpretation of the Standard Engine is one having a Bore of 94mm and a Stroke of 84mm.] So please accept my apology for this gross mis-statement of fact, for which I've no excuse... although I may be able to come up with one, given enough time :-)

The propeller is installed on the clutch-end of the crankshaft. You may fabricate the required spool & propeller hub yourself using the dimensioned drawings contained in the HVX Files or you may purchase them from Great Plains Aircraft Supply Co (GPASCo).

A 20A. alternator is installed coaxially on the pulley hub. The guts of the alternator are taken from a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. A kit of parts, including the required regulator, is available from GPASCo.

The engine conversion includes the HVX modifications. A swaging tool for installing the Toyota valve seals may be fabricated from the drawings or purchased from Mike Sample.

There are a wide variety of carburetors that will work with this engine. Least expensive is the Tillotson Model-X whereas most convenient is probably one offered by GPASCo.

The engine uses either single- or dual-port heads and may use either single or dual ignition. Unless dual ignition is required by local authorities, single ignition is recommended.

The lightest and least expensive ignition system is the stock Volkswagen system based on a mechanical-advance distributor (ie, the -009). This system uses regular ignition points which should be replaced every 100 hours. The system my be improved by eliminating the points using a solid-state points replacement module, or converted to a Waste Spark system using the CompuFire DIS-IX, although the latter is significantly heavier and about 4x more expensive.

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The above defines the basic engine. Engines of other configurations will work but the key factor is overcoming the Volkswagens inherent thermal limitation as dictated by the fin-area of the cylinder heads. The 'Fat-Fin' modification provides an elegant solution to the thermal limitation by increasing the fin area.

-R.S.Hoover
- doyleshoover@yahoo.com
-2 February 2010

Miscellaneous Information

2010-01-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

I have several e-mail addresses. None of them are very reliable but the best is doyleshoover@yahoo.com

I've completed the second series of radiation treatments.

A radiation treatment involves laying on a movable table on an X-ray machine while the technicians push & pull on your body until an intersecting pair of lasers are aligned with dots that have been tattoo'd on your torso during your first visit, when the location of your tumor is determined through a series of X-rays.

Once your body has been calibrated to the X-ray machine, the typical treatment involves TWO sub-critical bursts of X-ray's, aimed so that the critical amount of energy is achieved ONLY where the two beams of X-rays intersect.

An X-ray treatment may take as little as ten minutes, although twice that is more the norm.
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Today I commenced the next scheduled sequence of chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy is a Nine Dollar word for treating a medical problem with drugs... or chemicals. In the case of chemotherapy as applied to CANCER, chemotherapy typically refers to intravenous injections of a quart or more at a time. In the broadest sense the chemicals drip-drip-dripping out of their plastic baggie and into your arm are POISONS. The dosage is carefully calibrated so as to kill the cancer without doing too much damage to the patient, although there's usually some. In some cases the chemicals cause your hair to fall out, the generation of spurious pains, nausea of monumental proportions and even changes to your personality triggered by chemical imbalances.

There are solutions for each of these problems, mostly in the form of other drugs and chemicals, such as an anti-nausea drug, a pain-killer and so forth. These drugs don't prevent the chemotherapy problems, they simply reduce their effects to a level we can live with, on the assumption that once our chemotherapy is completed and we can stop taking the chemicals, the problems they have precipitated will cease.

That means the trick is to get through your course of chemotherapy as comfortably as possible. Alas, we humans are so variable in our make-up that it takes some degree of experimentation on the part of the physician to arrive at the proper dosage of these counter-chemotherapy drugs that we may find the happy medium before conclusion of the chemotherapy, which can run for a number of months in some cases. How do we know that? By keeping track of our blood chemistry.

Blood samples are drawn every seven to ten days and fed into automated blood analysis machines. The results are printed-out on a report similar to a spread sheet, showing the measured amount of a particular chemical followed by a footnote showing the normal range for that particular chemical. For example, the normal range of White Blood Cells (as per cubic microLiter of blood) is 4.6 to 10.2, meaning a measured WBC level of 9.3 would be acceptable, while comparison to past blood tests would tell us if the trend is rising, falling or steady. This procedure is applied to more than two dozen chemicals or characteristics that reflect normal blood.

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Once your blood chemistry reaches -- and maintains -- a stable state for a period of eight to ten weeks it indicates the causitive element -- the tumor or what-have-you -- is no longer active. Not cured, simply inactive. But that means your chemotherapy has been effective, and that you may chose to reduce your blood tests to once a month or an even longer period. This is not as risky as it may appear since you would still be performing a daily measurement of your Basic Vital Signs, such as your weight, blood pressure, pulse rate and body temperature. If your tumor becomes active it will usually cause a change in your Basic Vital Signs, giving you plenty of warning --- more than enough to schedule additional blood tests.

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I'm sitting in the kitchen, where I've homesteaded a corner near the back door... and immediately adjacent to a small bathroom. I am wearing clean, freshly laundered new clothes that very comfortable although their size (LARGE) would not have fit me a year ago.

Oddly enough, some of the new clothing is NOT from China ! ! The baseball cap is from MEXICO and one of my new shirts is from Bangladesh, which makes me something of a world traveler without having to leave home. (Or rather, without having to leave Wal-Mart :-)

-Bob

On Writing

2010-01-07T00:05:00.000-08:00

I've been writing since I was about fourteen. I'm not too sure why other than things seemed to have more permanence if I wrote them down. Each day the sun will rise and set but the day is not mine unless I make note of its passing. The writing grows from that simple root, in that while every day begins with the dawn no two days dawning are ever identical. To emphasize the obvious, I'm talking about the fact that on some days the sun is obscured by clouds or rain or being too lazy to make note of it. Or the day promises heat or the still expectancy of something about to happen. It is that expectation rather than the day itself that prompts me to write.

There are a million differences in the day. Just as no two people are alike, so too are the differences in each day. Frankly, I've a hunch most people don't see the differences. Life for them must be a tale of dull repetition. For me, it's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Most of my writing has been of a technical nature, an effort to explain the obscure in friendlier terms. Which works well enough for things that are fixed and will not change from one person to another, such as replacing a washer in a water faucet and sending the insidious drip-dripping to hell. But try to apply those writing skills to something as obtuse as human emotion and you'll quickly learn why there are writers... and then there are writers, which begs the question: Which one are you? It's possible that you have the rare spark of genius that is the foundation of every writer that is any good at all.

Anyone capable of communicating via the written word is a writer in the broadest definition of the term. Indeed, think about it for a minute and you will see that literally everything around you, from the slogan on the side of beer truck to: 'He is my friend, faithful and just to me;' is the product of a writer although clearly now we see some are better than others.

Within a fairly narrow range, writing may be learned, so long as we restrict that definition to grammar, spelling and the like. Which means you may have that spark of genius, smoldering beneath the ashes like coals in a stove. I think everyone should brush away those ashes, to see if they can coax fire from those coals. Because if you can, you owe it to those who can't.

Everyone who has every written anything at all eventually tries their hand at real writing, such as a novel, stage play or movie script. That's when you discover it might be wise to stick to washers, fixing faucets and explaining why you must loosen the lug-nuts before jacking up the wheel.

"You should write a book!" (Heard not once but many times.) The truth is, I already have -- and several times over. But the chore isn't the writing of a book, which isn't all that difficult. The secret is in selling what you've written. For without the incentive of good, old fashioned money there isn't any reason to spend the endless hours to find the perfect word needed to convey the image of the sun sliding slowly out of sight behind Catalina.

So thank you. Knowing you've found something of worth in what I've written is warmly appreciated.

-R.S.Hoover

BANG!!

2010-01-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

You s q u e e e z z e the trigger. It slips the sear and the hammer is driven forward by the cocked spring, which drives the flint past the frizzzen generating a shower of sparks to land in the pan holding a tiny charge of fine-grained primer-powder. The powder is ignited and flashes BACK into the barrel of the rifle, where it ignites the main charge, lightly compressed under the lead ball.

When the main charge ignites, it BURNS... it does not EXPLODE (although it happens so fast our PERCEPTION is that an explosion has taken place). When the powder burns, it raises the PRESSURE under the lead ball to tens of THOUSANDS of pounds per square inch. Not for very long, of course... too much pressure for too long will cause the mild steel barrel to fracture. But when the lead ball can MOVE, that is what happens.

Pushed by the pressure of the burning charge, the lead ball is driven from the barrel of the rifle. But since there are several groves in the barrel, the lead ball will follow the groves, which form a spiral, making one complete revolution for every three or four feet of the barrel's length.

Pushed by the pressure of the burning charge, the lead ball is driven from the barrel at velocities as high as two thousand feet per SECOND, although that is a bit higher than the norm. By actual measurement, a comepletely home-made rifle -- lock, stock & barrel -- drove a 0.454" lead ball at a muzzle velocity of 1375 (avg) feet per second.... and since the ball was rotating at the rate of ONE REVOLUTION for every forty-eight inches of travel, it means the ball was rotating at 1375 / 4 or about 345 revolutions PER SECOND... which is about 20,000 rpm. And at 20,000 rpm the spinning ball proves to be remarkably STABLE.

In effect, the lead ball has become a gyroscope that tends to remain stable, which is why the bullet flies true... we hope.

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Can YOU do that? Can YOU build a rifle that will keep your family fed and protect you from those who might try to harm you? The record shows that you can. In fact, the tooling needed to fabricate such a weapon is available to virtually EVERYONE because it is based on easily understood principles. You can even manufacture your own GUNPOWDER... which is why the contraversy over 'gun control' is such a joke.

-R. S. Hoover

Flied Lice

2009-12-31T20:25:00.000-08:00

I learned to make fried rice when I was stationed in Japan. It generally comes out pretty good. Unfortunately, I've never seen a recipe that's exactly the same, although most are similar.

Old Rice is Best.

You want about two cups of COLD, cooked rice. Not sticky but properly cooked. I just wait for it to accumulate. When I have a couple of cups, I go ahead and use it in fried rice... then start accumulating rice for the next batch. (Does that make sense? Mebbe not. When cooking rice you generally cook a cup or two at a time but it's rare for you to EAT everything that you cook; there's usually a bit left over. So you save it. Then comes the day when you want to fix something to eat and see that you've accumulated a couple of cups of rice. So instead of cooking MORE rice you simply use the rice you have to make Fried Rice.)

You GOTTA have Green Onions.

Big flower pot. Buy some seeds or onion sets. Poke them into some sand or soil, keep it growing on a window sill or whatever. (If you've got the room, you can also grow your peas & carrots. Think SMALL. You're feeding yourself... and maybe one other. It's almost impossible to NOT find enough room to keep a few things growing. And a lot of things you don't even have to plant! Seriously! Buy a bag of Navy beans... those little white jobbies. Pour some in a jar. Add water. Let them soak for a while then put them under your sink. Rinse them out every day or two until they sprout. Then EAT THE DAMN THINGS! Call them a salad if you want. Or stir them into your Flied Lice... or simmer with a thin-slice of beef. (The thinner you slice it, the better.)

Snow peas... or whatever. About a cupful; mebbe less. If snow peas, you get to eat the pods as well as the peas. But experiment. If you've got a carrot, try chunking it up; mebbe some celery. Not too much. But not too too much. If you add carrot, remember that it will take LONGER to cook than anything else, so start it earlier.

MEAT.

Bacon works. Ditto for ham. In fact, ditto for damn near ANYTHING although pork is traditional. (Sausage is interesting.) No pork? Then think FISH, SHRIMP or CHICKEN.

(EDIT: We're not all the same. Thank God. Some of us eat pork but a lot of us don't. Take that sort of thing into account when cooking or inviting someone to share a meal... or a car-pool. It's not about Being Right or Being Wrong, it's about Being Human. We are different for a lot of different reasons and your job is to pay attention to the DIFFERENCES rather than the REASONS. If you've got a ship-mate who has different view of things dietary, respect them. The important part is accepting the differences rather than trying to change things. So there's your pard, working alongside in the same hangar. Except he goes around the corner four or five times a day to pray and you don't. Don't keep waving a cool one in his face -- he probably feels the same way about beer as he does about pork.)

The meat USUALLY takes the longest cooking time. Respect it. Low heat. You are RENDERING the meat. If it is too dry you'll have to add about one tablespoonful of oil.

You'll be cooking in a wok or fairly deep skillet. With the meat cooked, put it aside, increase the heat and stir-fry the vegetables. This should take only a minute or two -- big flame, LOTS of stirring. You know it's done when squeezing a pea causes it to pop out of its skin.

Okay, dump the veggies with the meat and add the RICE to the skillet. Not too much heat but lots of stirring; you're getting the rice HOT... but without causing the rice to turn into little plastic bits. So stir. And mebbe give it a sprinkle of water, if things look too dry.

EGG(s)

Two little brown ones, whisked up with some water. Or mebber one great big white one; same deal; whisk it up. Don't do anything with them right now EXCEPT to whisk them up; I'll tell you when to add them.

Now start putting everything BACK INTO THE PAN. Meat. Stir it in. ADD THE GREEN ONIONS (FINELY DICED). And the veggies. Stir & fold; everything is GETTING HOT. You can begin adding a little SOY SAUCE. The rice will have a characteristic CRACKLING sound. (No, NOT like that... kinda like steam or sizzling veggies.)

Got the EGGS? Okay, pour them all over the rice! Keep stirring. Briskly. You're just about done; you want everything to be FINISHED AT THE SAME TIME.

The egg holds things together... along with the bits of meat & veggies and rice and soy sauce...

It starts to SMELL like Fried Rice (which is what it is). Now you can fine-tune things to your particular taste, perhaps by adding more meat or more onion... or less. Or whatever! You are FEEDING YOURSELF. It isn't a contest, it is preparing something that TASTES GOOD and is good for you!

DIVVY UP THE SPOILS!

Fried Rice can be kept for a couple of days, assuming you don't let it lay about open. First, you divide it with whoever you're sharing. If there is anything left over you can decide if it's worth the trouble to save it. Packed in a plastic box, you can take it to work as a brown-bag type of lunch (nuke it for a minute).

Use your EYE to measure, as modified by your sense of smell and taste. Fried Rice takes only a few minutes to prepare so DON'T make a major production out of it.

I tend to view fried rice as a means of getting rid of left-overs. But that doesn't mean you can't start from scratch and build a meal around it. For example, you may prefer to have your fried rice with shrimp or even chunks of chicken; something to add a bit more horsepower to what would otherwise be rather plain fare. (Do you like frog's legs? I do! VERY good with fried rice.)

I like to add a lump of Chinese mustard to the plate, dobbing it up as an accent... or just to clear my sinuses :-) Some prefer to go all-vegetarian, serving the fried rice with fish, deep-fried egg-rolls or whatever.

One of the best compliments to fried rice -- in my opinion -- is crispy spare-ribs. This is definitely NOT a means of ridding yourself of left-overs but of preparing a real meal.

-R.S.Hoover
-31 December 2009

PS -- I'll try to add some snap-shots. But don't wait for them to appear; go ahead and give yourself a treat.

(EDIT. I think most American's call them 'chop-sticks.' I call them 'hashi' because that's what I was taught. Hashi are a couple of wooden sticks that you use to shovel food from it's container into your mouth. You hold the container right up against your mouth then get busy with your hashi shoveling the groceries down the hatch.

What you DRINK with your lunch is usually green tea. Or water. You don't use knives or forks but you MAY use a spoon if we're talking soup. Feeding yourself means getting the food INSIDE of you without making a mess. If you use hashi, it's pretty hard to make a mess. [Sip, slurp, shovel, shovel, shovel...] You don't need knives because you cut everything to bite-size during preparation.

The interesting thing about 'chop-sticks' is that you probably have some near you, no matter where you are. And if you don't, pick up some scrap spruce and MAKE a set. )

HVX MODS; How To Do It To it

2009-10-12T16:02:00.000-07:00

Long, long ago, in a garage far, far away, a gaggle of VW mechanics gathered around a 1700 engine, which Volkswagen had brought out to replace the 1600. We were anxious to tear one down and see how you could improve on perfection. Actually, we were a kind of cheering section, giving the usual hi-fives and 'We're Numba Won!' as the autopsy progressed.

Right off the bat we got a winner when we pulled the valve covers to get at the rocker arms because the rocker-arm shafts were grooved for lubrication channels. That means a mod some of us had been running for nearly ten years had now been blessed with the Holy Crescent Wrench of acceptance in all factory-built VW engines (ie, this was in the early 1970's). Then came a minor scuffle over the thermostat; missing as they usually are on so many Volkswagen engines, with some of our band of experts admitting they'd never even seen one.

In the HVX MODS you need to cut eight rather accurate grooves in the existing rocker-arm shaft and things were heating up between the How-Toz who were automotive machinists with twenty years of grease under their fingernails and the Street People, which included the Shade Tree experts, arguing first, that the 1600 and earlier engines didn't need them because they'd run just fine until now, and the Do-It-Right Group which included some pretty good wrenches who had followed the HVX logic but were arguing how to cut the required groove. Those who were machinists were holding out for a shaped carbide cutting tool, whereas the Lo Buck Warriors with a teenie-weanie 7x10" lathe and a bench-top drill-press were insisting an angle-head grider with a 1/16" blade did the job just fine.

As usual, tasks ultimately descend to the abilities of the craftsman rather than the tools, with several examples of guys who built race-winning engines with a very modest inventory of tools. With jobs such as this the task often breaks down on how to hold the work... or how to hold the tools. In the photos you can see the rocker-arm shaft held in the three-jaw chuck of the lathe whilst the angle-head grinder is attached to the cross-feed by humungous rubber bands. Which is pretty smart. The grinder's speed is marginally controllable through the use of a 15A motor speed controller. This gives the machinist the ability to find a cutting speed that produces a clean, even cut without having the grinder try to climb the bar. The rubber bands provides the necessary amount of flex between the lathe and the grinder as each is brought up to speed, at which point the cross-feed is used to feed the tool -- the 3" dia. carbide disk spinning as fast as 18,000 rpm -- into the work, producing a groove of the required shape, depth and width. (Click on the picture). The builder, Mike Sample, has built a Double Eagle and has now turned his obvious talents to making himself an engine. Or rather, engines. Unsatisfied with the first, which I judged to be of about Porsche quality, he has turned his hand to a second which I'm guessing will be equal to something with entwined R's on the cowling.

Here's a shot of Mike's 'dirty' work surface - a section of marble counter-top. Next comes the grooving of the rockers and confirmation of their ability to flow oil through the Ford/Subie type adjusters. These swivel-foot adjusters date from the early 1960's when they were introduced by Ford of Germany. Additional pictures and some early HVX drawings will show how the lubricating oil wends its way from the oil pump, up the push rods, through the rocker arms and out of the adjustable rockers where it pools in the tops of the valve-spring retainers, to be thrown off, carrying with it a considerable quantity of heat whilest at the same time, reducing the wear of the rocker-arm shims. Off-road racers and hot-rodders have been using these mods since the mid-1960's but it came as a considerable surprise to find that many builders of Flying Volkswagens appeared to have never heard of them.

-R.S.Hoover

PS -- Some folks didn't like the look of the pix, worried that abrasives were getting into the lathe's guts & gearing. Personally, I've found that showing people what you set-up REALLY looks like generates more mail, asking if I've cut holes in a quilt and installed it over the tools.

Basic rule with abrasives is to catch them before they can get to surfaces that can be damaged by them. The usual method is to lay-out shop-towels, overlapping, giving each layer a spray of kerosene (then) or WD40 (now) . By the time you get done, the shop has vanished from your How-To pix, leaving you with pix that look like you've set-up atop your bed. While these pix may not display reality, they have the advantage of showing the newbie how the parts are mounted in the tool and what tool(s) you are using.

Nowadays, with the ready availability of tempered aluminum and small lathes that are accurate and affordable, it's as though our shops have shrunk. Covering it up with shop towels gives an even worse impression, in my opinion. - rsh

2009-09-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

Have you seen this? Smaller than even the smallest of the lap-tops, it's usually referred to as a notebook computer. This is the 'Aspire One' and it's made by Acer. This particular model costs about $400, thanks to its larger hard drive -- 141 GB -- and a high capacity battery. The usual price is about a hundred dollars less. It has an Ethernet port -- the one that looks like a big telephone jack -- three USB ports, an SD port for memory sticks and an outlet for a high-density video monitor. Plug in a DVD drive, an auxiliary keyboard and a flat-screen display, it will make a fair-to-middlen' desk-top. Wireless is built-in, as is a high definition camera, making it a handy-sized package for people who may need to do some computing on the go.

The Aspire One weighs two pounds fourteen ounces with the battery pack accounting for about twelve ounces of that. Acer does not provide a carrying case but there are a number of them available from the size of a back-packs to a simple envelope made of wet-suit material costing about ten bucks. Compared to a regular lap-top such as the eight and a half pound HP Pavilion shown below, the Aspire One is a dwarf.

The little Acer allows me to convert otherwise wasted time into something useful, thanks to DeltaCAD and AbiWord. I've already told you about DeltaCAD so allow me to introduce you to AbiWord, a free word processor that actually works. The Acer comes with some Microsoft software but it turns out to be teaser-ware, since it turns itself off unless you cough up some dough at some future date. Having no faith at all in Billy and his merry band of hapless programmers, even before I bought the Acer I started looking for something to use instead of the Microsoft software. Seriously, for writing I'm still running Word Perfect on my other computers. I was willing (and able) to pay for decent software but almost everything I tried appeared to have been written by children or failed to pass my quest for practicality. Which made AbiWord a delightful surprise. Not only is it well written, it's free, with no strings attached... so far.

Having cancer means spending a lot of time in doctor's offices. Not only does that mean a lot of time traveling too and fro, once you've arrived (always fifteen minutes early, as requested) you'll find that physicians have a bit of trouble reading a clock. I've never been an especially patient person and find I'm even less so now that I've been diagnosed with cancer. I find it rather ironic that the people who are trying to prolong my life appear unconcerned with chopping great chunks out of it.

-R.S.Hoover
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10/09/2009

Pull up the other comments you will see that Joseph and others have already caught my spelling error. Truth is, it's a sprawly kind of house, the Acer was in the bedroom and I wasn't. 'nuff said.

I received several private messages. I assume they took the trouble because they wanted it to be private so let's keep it that way. But on the whole, most of the private posts were about prices, present or about to become public which had me scratching my head because I'd already bought the thing. Ditto for some pricing info on chip, SD sticks and so forth. Couple of hacks . But the really BIG SURPRISE was in not receiving any. Usually, you buy something with a CPU inside you can count on several messages about how to make it do tricks. This time was nada. I'll let you figure out what that means.

Overall, the palm-top has proven to be well worth the price. No sense in me telling you why it's useful... sorta like trying to sell computers in the '70's. If the customer doesn't already have an application that needs to be computerized then you can't sell them one to do their taxes or whatever... computers define their own applications, not the other way around. Mostly, I like it; it has proved handier than I thought.
-R.S.Hoover

Good Salad

2009-08-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

GOOD SALAD.

1/2 head of Iceberg lettuce
2ea Medium tomatoes
1 'ring' from a Bermuda onion
1/4lb smoked salmon
1 heaping tablespoon Mayonnaise
1 Bud of Garlic

GARLIC
Peel the bud of garlic, smash it with the flat of your knife and rub the crushed garlic bud all over the bowl in which the salad will be mixed.

LETTUCE
You want it crispy. The best way to ensure that is to punch out the stem, rinse the head with clean, cold water, then bag it and leave it in the refrigerator overnight. When you take it out of the reefer it will nice and cold. Poke your thumbs into the hole where the stem used to be, tear the head of lettuce in two then tear one of the halves into bite-sized chunks and toss them into one of those centrifugal spinner jobbies and pump it up & down for about a minute. This will fling off most of the water. Toss it into the bowl. If lettuce is not available you may use a couple of six-inch cucumbers, well chilled then peeled and diced.

TOMATOES
To me, a medium tomato is about 2-1/2 inches in diameter. Stand the tomato stem-side down and quarter it. Slide it apart so as to leave two halves and slice them three times so as to leave four chunks. Do this for both tomatoes, tossing the chunks into the salad bowl.

ONION
You may use green onions here if you wish. Indeed, depending on the season and your location, green onion may be all that is available. In either case, dice the onion so as to produce chunks no larger than the chunks of tomato and toss them into the bowl.

SMOKED SALMON
Shred the salmon with a fork. If salmon isn't available almost any other smoked fish will do: Smoked Tuna, Albacore, etc. If you are at or near a seaport you are bound to find someone selling smoked fish. Try a chunk of whatever is available. When you find something you like, use it in your salad. If you are out in the boondocks, try a can of smoked sardines or mackerel.

When available, you may substitute avocado for the fish.

Add 1 large tablespoonful of Mayonnaise then season to taste using the juice of two small limes or half of a lemon. Be wary of adding salt if you've used smoked fish, which is often already salted.

Serve with cold beer and crackers or bread. In the photo you can see a dish of wholewheat bagel that I've toasted to make it crunchy then sliced into four pieces.

The salad is meant to comprise the whole meal but it may also be served with steak, barbecued ribs, roast chicken and so forth.

-R.S.Hoover

Traditional Sized

2009-08-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

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I am a ham radio operator, the holder of a General License although I have retained my original Novice license. I did that so as not to intimidate the youngsters who attended my classes in Morse Code and basic electronics.

Many were drawn to ham radio because it allowed them to maintain communications with their home or office... assuming there was another licensed ham radio operator on the other end. But ham radio was also of benefit during the Voyager's around the world flight in 1987, when a group of us monitored the progress of the flight.

I still use ham radio to monitor the location of my 1965 VW bus. Should I ever go missing in the desert -- or should the bus be stolen -- its location can be determined to within 50 meters or so through a combination of ham radio and GPS.

In the delightful novels of Alexander McCall Smith, author of 'The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency' and more than thirty others, Mma Ramotswe, the Botswana detective describes herself as a lady of 'traditional' size. By comparison, the 'traditional size' of the station of the typical ham radio operator would fill six to eight feet of shelf space, which makes it rather difficult to grasp the size of the present-day 'communications station,' which fits in my ear.

Actually, the ear-piece is just the microphone and head-phones. The transciever is my cell phone, which fits in my pocket. Anyone having the number of my cell phone may contact me any time I am 'on line.' Which isn't very often.

Of course, the modern-day system of cell phones depends upon the existing system of land-lines to work. That is, our cell phones connect to a local receiver-computer which locates the station you are calling. It then uses the land-lines to send your message to a transmitter/receiver nearest to the station you are trying to contact, which then connects you to that station. The key point here is that your cell phone depends upon the existence of the traditional web of wires or cables. Should there be a disaster that damages those land-lines, your cell-phone will not work, whereas the traditional ham radio station will continue to work since it does not depend on land-lines.

Today I am measuring valve springs for four heads. I'll be working in the shop where I can't hear the ring of a telephone. So I'm wearing my cell phone in my ear. The ear-piece talks to the cell phone in my pocket. About the size of a pack of king-size cigarettes, this has become the 'traditional size' for personal communications

-R.S.Hoover

IT'S ALL ABOUT HEADS. HONEST!

2009-07-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to explain the importance of your cylinder heads. The subject is fairly complex and I've found the explanation difficult, having to stop and start over each time I came to a point that I assumed was common knowledge. Along the way a couple of my Mystery Followers checked in
. I didn't know if there was a secret handshake or password or some other Googleistic requirement. There wasn't. The 'Followers' were just guys who wanted to know each time I posted something to the blog. Fair enough, except for the fact I have been virtually unable to post anything anywhere for the past couple of weeks.

It's called neuropathy.

I get a basic blood test every week and a complete work-up every month. The doctors use the information from the blood tests to tailor my cancer treatment, altering my medications as needed to keep the tumor in check. With multiple myeloma the tumor isn't a single mass at one site, but distributed inside my bones at a number of sites. Which means they can't go in and cut it out. But the right combination of medications can limit its activity, keeping me alive a little longer. Unfortunately, some of the medications trigger side-effects, such as making your fingers 'tingle' to the point where you can't do much with your hands. And that includes TYPING.

So the answer to the several messages wondering about my lack of activity on the blog is 'neuropathy.' Which is the medical term for having your fingers tingle. Especially when they 'tingle' so badly as to prevent using your hands for a lot of things. In my case, one of the things I couldn't do very well was typing.

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As for it being all about heads, it really is -- so long as we are talking about Volkswagens. And since it's about heads, it is also about the various TOOLS needed to work on your heads, such as a tool to compress the valve springs so you can remove your valves. You also need a tool to measure the strength of your valve springs when they are compressed to a standard height. Then there is the need for tools to cc your combustion chambers. And a tool to measure the amount of play in your valve guides.

A lot of the articles I've written have been to show you how you can MAKE those tools, saving yourself hundreds of dollars.

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As of last Wednesday I've been taking a medication that is different from the one that triggered the neuropathy ( nerve pain ). My fingers still tingle a little bit but nothing like before, when it got so bad I couldn't type. If my scores on this weeks blood tests show the new medication to be as effective as the old, then the problem will hopefully go away and I can get back to explaining what has to be done to a set of heads and why. So... fingers crossed.

-R.S.Hoover

The Fearless Leader Report

2009-07-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

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Yes, it is I; your Fearless Leader. I've still no idea what my duties entail but I see the number of 'Followers' has increased.

You guys are really making me nervous. I appreciate the implied compliment but I assume it's some kind of inside joke. No, I don't expect you to run away, it's just that I don't know what I'm supposed supposed to DO.

So until the other shoe drops, I'll keep doing what I've been doing. Which is not much, if the past week is an example.

According to my blood tests the tumor remains in its cave. I am trying to regain my lost weight and restore my physical strength but I'll tell you pard, this is one hell of a chore. Some of the drugs needed to keep the tumor in its quiescent state also act to suppress my appetite -- a neat example of Catch-22. With my toothpick arms and spindly legs just standing up is a test of my strength. To stand up AND work at the same time is a real test of will. What happens is that after working for a few minutes I experience spasms in my lower back, forcing me to sit down. After sitting for a time the pain goes away and I'm able to repeat the procedure.

About the only people who see something good in all this is our three 'outdoor' cats. (We also have one 'indoor' cat.) Whenever I sit down I acquire a lapful of cats.

Yes, even when I'm writing something like this... it's a warm evening so I left one of the kitchen doors open. I've no idea how cats know when a lap appears. Perhaps laps give off a scent... or make some characteristic sound. Whatever the means, it is quite effective. I've got the proof right in front of me :-)

-R.S.Hoover

Valve-job Tool

2009-07-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

The Volkswagen engine uses poppet valves, as do all other cars today. The exhaust valves are the weak link in any engine but especially so in air-cooled engines, be it Pratt-Whitney or Volkswagen. If we want to keep tabs on our engine's condition all we need do is keep track of the condition of our exhaust valves since they are the first part to fail. Of course, we never allow them to fail, we merely keep track of their condition and when they tell us they are about to fail, we pull the heads and give them a 'valve job.'

To keep track of them we use the leak-down test, pulling the heads any time the leak-down is more than twenty percent or thereabouts. To do a 'valve job' means to remove the valves and restore the worn parts to spec. In about eighty percent of all cases, the worn part is the valve itself but other parts associated with the valve – the valve guide, the valve seat or the rocker arm – may also require repair or replacement. Since replacing the valves is the most frequent chore, that's what I'll talk about here, with a minor mention of the other valve-related components as we come to them.

The valve is opened by the cam but it is closed by the valve spring, which we must compress in order to remove the valve. The valve spring is held in place by a retainer and a pair of valve keepers. That is, the retainer fits down over the stem of the valve and rests on the valve spring. The stem of the valve has a pair of grooves into which the valve keepers fit. When so fitted, the valve keepers lock into the grooves and wedge into a tapered bore in the retainer, which sits on top of the valve spring. So long as the spring is in its proper position and is not damaged, the valve will not come loose, even though it may be actuated several times per second.

The valve spring is a coil-type compression spring that is progressively wound; the turns nearest the head having a higher ratio of turns per inch. This allows for easier opening. But like all springs, the Volkswagen's valve springs are effected by heat and age. VW valve springs typically take several million actuations before showing any sign of weakening. In a vehicle, the stock VW engine needs a valve job after about thirty thousand miles of service but Flying Volkswagens are rarely of stock displacement (which is less than 100 cid). Flying Volkswagens may be as large as 140 cid and their valve wear is a function of the work they do, which may be several times that of a vehicular engine. These non-stock 'Big-Bore Strokers' may need a valve job as frequently as every ten hours... or as infrequently as every two hundred hours, depending on how the engine is used.

The Volkswagen is a robust little engine that, like all Otto Cycle engines, provides a wealth of precursors of impending failure. So long as the engine is properly assembled and operated within its limitations by a pilot who has learned to recognize those clues, it is as reliable as any other engine in its class. But this puts a heavy burden on the pilot, who must be able to recognize those clues.

In an airplane the condition of the valves is determined by a leak-down test, which is performed periodically, the length of that period determined by the manner in which the engine is used. The leak-down tests (ie, wet & dry) reflects the amount of wear of the valves and rings, with the valves wearing at a much faster rate than the rings.

To perform a valve job we must remove the heads from the engine and the valves from the heads. Exhaust valves are replaced rather than reground but the intake valves may be reground and re-used.

When doing a valve job we check the valve springs against the spec in the work-shop manual. The diameter of the valve dictates the amount of spring tension needed to achieve proper closure. In specifying one valve tension but with a very wide tolerance for both the intake and the exhaust, you are seeing one of the many compromises Volkswagen made to keep down the price. For example, when the spring pressure is given as 96 lbs (+/- 6lbs) it is fair to assume that the smaller figure ( ie, 90 lbs) should be used for the exhaust and the larger figure (ie, 102 lbs) is used for the intake valves.

One of the more interesting features of the Volkswagen engine is that each lobe of the cam actuates TWO valves rather than one. That is, the intake valve of the #2 cylinder is actuated by the same cam lobe that actuates the intake valve of the #4 cylinder. The action of the cast iron cam as it wipes across the face of the cast-iron cam-followers (ie, the 'tappets') is the engine's major source of metallic residue, which in turn is the main source of wear in the engine's bearings and oil pump. To minimize this wear the wear-factor of the cam must be exactly twice that of the cam followers. The pressure of the valve spring plays a critical role in the wear-factor of the valve train as a whole.

At this point you need to go to http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/

That's the home page of Mark Langford, who has contributed about three Ph.D's worth of information to the pool of knowledge all of us are swimming in. Specifically, I want you to read about how Mark measured his valve springs. Here in the Blog I've posted an article about a tool I made for that purpose but I was dealing with forty or fifty springs at a time. Like Mark, you are building only one engine. His method is more practical than mine.

What I want you to do is to COPY the method Mark has used for measuring his valve springs.

The assumption here is that you have only EIGHT valve springs. What you'll want to do is create the best possible match from BANK to BANK.

If you are running stock heads... meaning you are using valves of stock diameter, the spec for your valve springs is 126, +/-9 at a compressed height of 1.32". Which may be translated as 117 for your intakes and 135 for your exhaust.

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Doing a leak-down test, the 'wiggle' test and doing a valve job are common chores for those of us who flys behind a Volkswagen engine. Given that my life literally depends on the quality of the work done to my engine, it should come as no surprise that I'm unwilling to trust any work done by a mechanic who is NOT certified by some agency or authority equally concerned with the quality of his craftsmanship. Since there is no such agency for auto engines converted for flight it seems logical that I do such maintenance myself. There are a few tools specific to these tasks. They are available from most of the larger after-market retailers who specialize in VW parts. But it is the nature of the Volkswagen philosophy that the tools may also be fabricated by the individual mechanics. Volkswagen used to provide a booklet of dimensioned drawings for such tools but no longer does so.

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The first illustration in this article shows the two most recent types of valve spring retainer used on Volkswagen engines. As you can see, we need to provide for a retainer approximately 1-1/4" in diameter. Once the tool makes secure contact with the retainer we need to provide a downward force to compress the spring. It doesn't take much -- about half an inch will do. We then use a scribe or other pointed tool -- a sharpened nail will work -- to free the keepers from the grooves in the stem of the valve. Once the keepers are freed, they are removed but kept sorted according to the valve from which they came. A magnetized scriber works best or you can use a magnetic pencil.

For those of you without a metal lathe, making a tool that fits over the valve retainer is the most difficult part of the job but as you can see from the photos there are any number of workable options. And those rivets you see started out as regular nails. Just cut them off short.

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As a point of interest the Single Port (SP) head shown in the photos is a junker. The spark plugs were installed WITHOUT anti-seize compound, a necessity with regular spark plugs and ALUMINUM heads. Both of the spark plug holes have been stripped until they are almost smooth.

The shade-tree fix for a stripped spark plug hole is to install a Heli-Coil (a brand name), which is coil made of wire having a diamond-shaped cross-section. The inner diameter of the coil matches that of the spark plug whilst the outer diameter matches that of a special tap that is sold with the Heli-coils as a kit. The Heli-Coil tap is threaded into the hole WITHOUT drilling it to a larger size.

There is another type of spark plug repair kit which uses a metal sleeve having it's ID threaded for the spark plug and it's external thread of some larger diameter, usually that of a regular size. This type of repair requires the spark plug hole to be opened up to a larger size, usually with a drill. To use this type of repair kit on a Volkswagen engine that is still in the vehicle the mechanic needs to use an angle-head drill-motor or a reamer, since there isn't enough room to use a regular drill-motor. (Clearly, this does not apply to aircraft installations.)

Unfortunately, the point over looked by shade-tree mechanics is that ANY form of spark plug hole repair that involves the use of a coil or sleeve must not be used on an AIR-COOLED engine (!!) The sleeve or coil upsets the resistance -- both thermal and electrical -- of the spark plug.

The fact this type of repair is allowed on WATER-COOLED engines fitted with aluminum heads is taken by non-professional mechanics to mean the procedure may be used on ANY engine. Sadly, this is not true.

So how DO you repair a stripped spark plug hole? Working from the chamber-side of the spark plug hole you hog out a crater of generous proportions, pre-heat the head to about four hundred degrees and go at it with TIG ( or even MIG, if you've got the right equipment) ...and fill the crater with molten aluminum. The head is then put back into the oven, the oven is shut off, and the head(s) are allowed to cool to room temperature.

(Did you notice the implied plural? The plural does not refer to the fact VW engines have two heads but to the fact it is not economically practical to repair damaged heads one at a time. What you do is wait until you have about two dozen damaged heads then tool up to do them all at once.

But here in Southern California, with more than twenty-one MILLION registered vehicles(*) -- and more air-cooled Volkswagens than anywhere else in the country, there was another option.

During that period (circa 1970's) for small shops such as mine, it was worth while to find a bigger shop that regularly overhauled heads on an assembly-line basis in batches as large as 250. They would allow small shops to add their heads to the batch, inspecting them to ensure all of the preliminary work had been done, and done to their specs. They would then do ONLY the welding, charging a nominal fee.

The point here is that the proper repair of a VW head with a stripped spark plug hole is to weld it up and re-machine it. For someone FLYING behind a Volkswagen engine, if it suffers a stripped spark plug hole your best option is to replace the head, since the repair would cost more than a replacement head. But don't forget that any replacement must be an EXACT match for the old head, meaning identical chamber volume and valve train geometry.

And this time remember to apply a dab of anti-seize compound to the first few threads... and then wipe it off. The tiny amount that will remain deep in the threads is all you need.

A handy way to prevent cross-threading a spark plug is to install it full-depth using only your fingers. It will then take little more than one turn to achieve the required torque-spec (22 ft/lb). And be sure that's done with a NEW WASHER. (They've got them at the real automotive parts places; don't waste your time in those chain-store auto parts retailers.)

Finally, I recently read a post where a fellow stripped his heads because his spark plugs projected into the combustion chamber. This would NEVER happen on a properly assembled engine, where checking the projection of the plug is a standard step during pre-assembly.

If the proper plug projects too far you will want to add a solid copper washer between the regular washer and the body of the spark plug. That is, you want your new, crushable washer to be in contact with the head on at least one side. Spark plug manufacturers provide solid copper washers as well as new, crushable washers. They're usually racked in the 'Dorman's' trays (those orange & black trays taking up wall space in the back of the store) :-)

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(to be continued)

Designing a Bigger Box

2009-07-02T18:02:00.000-07:00

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There I am in the patio, holding steady at 151 pounds. Or 10.8 stone if you hail from across the pond. Or 68.5 kilos. Down a tad from about 235 pounds back before cancer came to call.

My height has also shrunk, apparently due to the destruction of my 3rd lumbar vertebrae; enough so that my height is now 70-1/4" instead of 72", which explains why my trousers are not only too loose but too long. Here again, the cause is due to the tumor munching away on my spine. In fact, even my feet have gotten smaller. Not in length but in most other dimensions. Which means my feet sort of rattle around in my shoes... now that the edema-like swelling is no longer a problem. (For several months the edema forced me to wear an old pair of Uggs that I'd modified with a razor, turning them into enormous slippers.) As a point of interest, the edema was a side-effect of the medication. As I became accustomed to the medication, the edema slowly went away.

Early in the history of this blog is an article about an apprentice's tool box, which was one of those tricky bits used to teach people how to rivet. A number of you, including at least one shop class, have found the tool box of sufficient interest to tackle it as a project. But more than one of you has pointed out that the dimensions of the box, while practical for tools of the 1930's, is a bit too small for tools of the 21s century. Which I pretty much ignored. After all, the project was meant to teach people how to rivet; it's functionality as a box for carrying tools was not its purpose. But when this point was raised by a third person I figured it was time to take another look at it. You can pretend that's what I'm doing in the photo above :-) (I think my wife took the snap shot to show my sister how skinny I've become.)

So I will go ahead and post a set of drawings for a bigger box; something more suitable for a modern-day kit of tools. Personally, I have not yet found the need for such a thing but judging from my mail, several of you have.

-R.S.Hoover

The Crooked Foundation

2009-06-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

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During my last years in the Navy I was involved in what was known as the Technology Transfer Program. The idea was to pass along modern technology to friendly nations; to try and bring them up to speed in using modern-day communications and computers. I often wondered why. We were fresh out of Russians, pounding their shoe on the table at the UN, shouting they would bury us. 'Rebels' were occasionally given a polite mention.

The quotes are because it was often difficult to tell who was a rebel and who was not.

The program was a marvelous success, of course. (Have you ever heard of a government program that was not?) In fact, most of the programs were dismal failures, for reasons that were painfully evident. For example, we were tasked with teaching the operation and repair of solid-state devices to electronics technicians who had never been exposed to solid-state devices. They tried -- and there were a few who did pretty well -- we'd been given the best people they had... and 'best' was determined by how well they did with tube-type equipment, the newest being Vietnam-era junk, long since replaced by more modern equipment.

A lot of the mail I get reminds me of those 'Technology Transfer' programs. And for the same reason. For example, a message arrives from a fellow who claims to be qualified in all the basic stuff needed to maintain a VW engine, having owned his bug or bus for a number of years. In the message he provides a number of symptoms that make it clear the problem is worn valve guides, with a probability close to 100%, plus the fact that replacing the valve guides is a fairly common chore for the Volkswagen engine due to the small diameter of the valve stems and the fact air-cooled engines operate at a significantly higher temperature than their water-cooled cousins. Fortunately Volkswagen kept those things in mind when it designed the VW engine so that replacing the valve guides, which you'll need to do about every third valve job, is a straight-forward procedure, needed only a couple of additional tools.

With those things in mind I pointed the fellow toward the valve guide procedure, which I believe is fairly complete.

Unfortunately, the fellow had never done a valve job. And of course, he didn't have even the most most basic tool, the valve spring compressor, needed to dismantle the heads. His definition of Major Maintenance was replacing his clutch disk.

In the end, he bought a pair of 'rebuilt' heads from a the local 'expert' and took the first steps down the slippery slope that eventually lead to him getting rid of his Volkswagen.

Ditto for Flying Volkswagens, except that first step is liable to happen within a matter of hours rather than years. Why? Because a flying Volkswagen is liable to be operated for hours at a time at a level of output rarely seen in a bug or bus. The tricky bit here is the belief that all rpm's are the same; that running 3600 rpm in a plane will be the same as running 3600 rpm in a car. It isn't... unless the manifold pressure happens to be the same as well. The bottom line is that you can literally wear out a VW engine in a matter of hours.

Which isn't especially bad, assuming you understand what you are doing and keep a spare set of heads on hand.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm a bit more circumspect nowadays, with people having assembled an engine from a kit of parts. Do you have a valve spring compressor? A rack to hold the removed valves? Do you have these foundation tools? Because if you don't, you'd better get them. You can buy them or make them but you absolutely can not do without them. These tools are the foundation of engine maintenace and to do without them is to build on a crooked foundation; things simply can not come out true.

This article shows a fixture for holding valves. These happen to be made of wood but you can make them from cardboard, assembled with duct tape, or scrap aluminum if you'd like a simple riveting project. But I like to work with wood and had some scrap handy....

CANCEROUS VOLKSWAGENS

2009-06-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

This is a red 'loaf, I think a '71. No engine installed but it's on its own wheels. Used for storage so some stuff has to come out before it can go. There might be a Type IV stored in it -- I haven't been into it in more than a year.

There is a small propane tank for this one. Lotsa junk inside.

This is the one down in the field. No running gear but trick upholstery. Loaded with junk. Needs to be skidded onto a flat-bed... after removing the vehicles in front of it.

That's Grendle. I patched her floor & door jams, did some work to the nose & cockpit (floor was rusted out). Front axle is removed for overhaul... which never happened. Ditto for engine, except it was a swap; the core engine is still here, plus the tranny & aft running gear. The running gear could be re-installed in a couple of days but it's a long way from running -- needs a fuel tank & plumbing, for example, plus I haven't finished the doors.

There is a nose clip down in the field which was for this vehicle but now it's a case of winner take all. There's a shot of her nose.

HVX_MODS WARNING !

2009-06-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

.
TO ALL:

In doing the HVX mods you must drill two holes which result in the connection of the right-side tappet oil gallery to the #3 cam bearing.

THIS DRILLING IS CRITICAL!

On some engines there is not enough metal to allow the two new holes to connect without breaking through to the outside of the crankcase. THIS WILL DESTROY THE CRANKCASE.

Before doing the drilling you must make sure there is enough metal. A warning to that effect has been on the drawings since they were first uploaded but in some cases it is difficult to take an accurate measurement, in others the builder lacks the proper tools.

-R.S.Hoover

What's the Secret?

2009-06-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

.
In addition to the Comments attached to to the tail-end of every Blog entry, a lot of folks contact me directly via email ( veeduber@chuggers.net ) In response to my last Blog entry ('Good News!' ) I received several email messages. One of them sounded a bit forlorn... and failed to provide a valid email address, making it impossible to answer them directly. What they wanted to know was the 'secret' of receiving good medical care.

I don't think there is a secret. But I think a lot of people have failed to understand the realities of modern medical treatment and a good way to prove that is to take a look at medical treatment in the past. You know the ones I mean.... where the Hero gets sick and ends up in the hospital attended to by the modern-day version of Florence Nightingale, where the All-Knowing physician apparently lived in a room just down the hall. The Hero's medical record -- magically reduced to a single sheet of paper attached to a clip-board hanging on the foot of the bed -- contained everything doctor might want to know.

You can get a good laugh out of some present-day hospitals, the ones where the nurses don't even speak English and the physician might only come around one day per week. My case will give you a nice example of modern-day medical treatment, where the patient becomes their own hospital.

As most of you know, I have Multiple Myeloma, a form of blood cancer for which there is no cure, although it can be treated. The fellow who wrote me is apparently dealing with medical problems of his own, wondering what's the secret to getting a bit of good news.

Although I don't believe there is any secret, the difference between my treatment and his could very well be the quality of the hospital he uses, which is a play upon words since, as I've said above, in the modern day we often become our own hospital.

See that clip-board hanging on the foot of the patient's bed? Back in the Good Ol' Days... whenever that was, that was the patient's 'Vitals Chart' and listed the patient's pulse-rate and temperature, recorded however often the doctor requested it, with every four hours being typical. Nowadays your vitals usually present more data, such as blood pressure and the oxygen content of your blood. Being my own hospital, I collect & record my own vitals, generally using modern electronic instruments. As a pilot I already had a Nonin (brand name) blood-oxygen instrument, and the electronic thermometer seemed to arrive along with the kids. But I had to buy an electronic blood pressure device (less than $20).

I usually take my vitals every day. The data is recorded in a notebook and again into a computer file. The notebook makes the data portable, allowing the physician to see it, should they ask. But most doctor's offices prefer to record your vitals themselves.

I also record my weight, usually after my shower.

My pills follow a four-times-per-day schedule. There is a listing that shows what medications I take, how much, and when they are taken. There is also an 'Origination List' showing which physician prescribed which pills, what they are for and when they were prescribed. Making sure this list up to date is a basic chore each time we visit any of the five doctors. Since my ailment is being treated by a team of physicians, it's up to me to ensure that all are made aware of any change to my mediations, especially when there is the possibility of any drug interaction.

Many cancer patients say the cure is often worse than the disease. I've got a hunch they need to spend more time talking to their physician because a slight change in dosage or frequency can eliminate many of the side-effects which give rise to such claims. (In my case there isn't any cure, but that doesn't mean it has to be fatal.) Working with the physicians over the past year has resulted in a nice balance of medications which has reduced the side-effects to little more than a nuisance. That doesn't mean a full recovery -- the tumor has caused too much damage for that. But neither does it have me puttering about in a wheel chair. In either case, each of us is the master of our fate. For someone to feel that good medical care involves some secret is more likely to cause others to doubt the person's perceptions than the quality of their physician. On the other hand, over the last few years there has been enormous strides in medicine and some physicians have failed to keep pace. If the cure is indeed so terrible it would seem logical to seek a second opinion.

Personally, if there is any secret it probably has to do with the cooperation between the physicians and the patients, with the patient playing the major cooperative role. Physicians simply have too many depands upon their time. From the outset of my treatment Dr. Bessudo, my oncologist, insisted upon a team approach, calling upon other physicians as needed. He also said that I would be a part of the team but I didn't realize what that role entailed. Looking back on the past year it is now obvious that much of my progress was due entirely to the roles played by my wife and myself. While that may sound self-serving I can swear it is not.

In effect, my hospital covers about 200 square miles (!). In the past year my wife has never failed to deliver me to the proper physician, on time and suitably attired. (Indeed, she uses a check-off list to ensure I have wallet, cell-phone and so forth -- ten items, all tolled.) Nor has she failed to procure my medications, and to dole them out in the proper frequency, from once a day to once per week. I suspect support of this nature is not considered much of a secret when in fact it forms the very foundation of my treatment.

A recommended change to my medication appears automatically on the other physician's computers, supported by an often cryptic email. Often times a recommended change will produce a flurry of emails before the matter is resolved, often based on economic factors. (You won't believe what some drugs cost!) New drugs come on the market every day and if your ailment matches the intended purpose of the drug you're liable to be used as something of a lab-rat. Before trying something new, if you are being treated by more than one physician, it's a good idea to make sure they are all aware of the new drug and any possible side effects. This kind of information is available in the Physician's Desk Reference (PDR) and from the company offering the new drug. The key point here is that you... YOU need to devote some time to your treatment. As I've said, physicians are busy people. Your treatment must be a cooperative effort.

Baffled by all those medical terms? Then write them down. Now go look them up on your computer. Learn how to pronounce them properly. Write down any questions you may have. Rehearse your visit to the doctor. Be concise! Don't waste her time. (Nor his.)

Are these things secrets? I don't think so. Indeed, I've a hunch your physician will appreciate your enlightened interest.

-R.S.Hoover

Great Day!

2009-06-09T14:59:00.000-07:00

Just back from the Doctor Shop. This was the internist, Dr. Kipper. Turns out, he has not been getting copies of my blood-work from the lab. (The lab's computer zips the copies out to whoever is on the list. For some reason it has not been zipping. Now it is.)

He does his thing; stethoscope, poke'm here, poke'm there... "DEEP breath... no, a really deep breath..." and I'm breathing so hard the wallpaper is starting to blister. Doesn't believe the girls figures perhaps.

Hems & haws and finally tells me: 'Get outta here. Come see me in three or four months."

So the physicians are all in agreement: I'm pregnant. Or mebbe not :-) But I'm certainly not suffering from a cancerous tumor. Oh, it's there. And it has already done its dirty work. But except for the back pain I am not suffering from it. It has not spread; it is not eating me alive.
This is GOOD NEWS . And I am happy to share it with you.

There is still the pain, of course, kept in check by a careful balance of pain-killers. If I try to do too much -- and I have, a time or two. I have a Magic Elixer called 'No Pain' that I can rub on the spot which does a nice job if the pain is not too large. But keep pushing the envelop and the pain will eventually break through. By the time it does, it's no laughing matter -- the magnitude is 'way out there and nothing works except a shot or more pain pills... which knocks me out. And if I'm not near a bed when that happens, it can be a major inconvenience.

But today was a good day. One I wanted to share with you.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm still working on the Portable/Table Saw project. I wasted a week tracking down some sanding disks. Then we had a spate of rain (!!). Unheard of this late in the year. Then there were house chores... yada, yada, yada.

And the worry. Which is kinda funny.

I've got cancer. But I feel pretty good and find myself worrying about that. Think about it for a minute. The main problem is that I've not yet gotten to the point where I can shrug my shoulders and get on with my life. After all, Cancer is Bad. So I shouldn't be feeling Good.

Crazy, eh?

-R.S.Hoover

On Engines

2009-06-04T14:19:00.000-07:00



In response to one of Rocky's messages I mentioned  a number of things
that can effect compression ratio.  Sunday I go to check the mail and
there's this buncha guys peering in my window all saying pretty much the
same thing:

I don't see how ... (you fill in the blank)  can have any effect on CR.

A minor variation on the theme was:

(Your favorite expert's name goes here)... sez to do it like ( whatever)
and never mentions (...various unmentionables...).

Please accept the following as a general answer for all.

CRANKCASE

The four holes in the crankcase that accept the cylinder barrels are called
spigot bores.  The area around each bore is called the deck and serves to
support the cylinder.  The deck of the spigot bores must all be the same
distance from the center-line of the crankshaft.  This is something you
check before you start building any VW engine even when using a new
crankcase because sometimes the axis of the crankshaft is machined
slightly eccentric, meaning the main bearing bores are a little bit deeper in
one half of the crankcase than the other.  Or more rarely, machined at a
slight angle, with the clutch-end being more to the left, the pulley-end to
the right (or visa-versa).  Not often but it happens.  So you check it. 

With any USED crankcase the spigot bore decks will have been re-faced
-- re-machined to get rid of the shuffle marks.  Good shops with the right
equipment always machine the case decks to match but if you buy a used
crankcase from a shade-tree mechanic or a shop that caters to the kiddie
trade you're liable to find almost anything.  I've seen cases with as much
as sixty thou variation in the spigot deck height from one side to the
other... and almost that much on the same side of some cases, which tells
you the case came from a drill-press operation (ie, a shop that doesn't
have a milling machine).

Your jugs sit on the deck around the spigot bores.  If there is any
difference in their height it will be reflected in the height of the cylinders.
And since the con-rod extension is relative to the center-line of the
crankcase, any variation in the height of the cylinders will show up as a
difference in the deck-height of the piston at TDC.

If that's not clear, make a drawing and work it out but the message here
is that you have to KNOW.  You can't guess.  You need to blueprint the
case and record your findings, whatever they are, because you're about to
build on that foundation and by the time you get out to the heads you will
have stacked up half a dozen components and even the smallest
variations will have become significant because of the stack-up. 

Major point here is that there is always some amount of variation.  With
an army of inspectors to insure the quality of every step in the
manufacturing process, for original Volkswagen parts the variations
would tend to cancel each other out rather than stack up.  That's not true
with after-market parts.  The only way to know what you have is to
measure what you got. Some guys call this 'blueprinting' and make a big
deal out of it but it's mostly common sense.

CRANKSHAFT

Set the crank up in vee blocks or with fitted bearings in a known-true
case half and check the length of the throws, even if it's a good crank
you've just sent out for a polish.  Sometimes the grinder will have a bad
day and you'll end up with a crank having a slightly different stroke on
one (or more!) of the journals.  So you check it to within the accuracy of
your tooling and record the results.  Usually, cranks are pretty good.
Some of those cranks coming in from China are as good as any I've seen.
But some are trash.  Ditto for a LOT of welded strokers aimed at the
Kiddie Trade, with examples of every problem you can name being
woefully common.  You have to check and record what you find even
when any variation falls within acceptable limits because that variation,
whatever it is, will add to or subtract from the finished dimensions of the
engine.

CONNECTING RODS

To 'rebuild' a rod you re-bush the little end, hone the bush to spec then
pull apart the big end, use a surface grinder to remove a little metal from
the parting line, torque it back together and machine the big-end back to
a true circle relative to the little end.  That is, you try to keep the distance
between the center of the big end to the center of the little end the same
as for a new rod fresh from the factory.

Sunnen honer properly maintained, skilled machinist... you can produce a
pretty good rod.  Shops that cater to the kiddie trade... wetback labor...
worn-out or poorly maintained machine tools... Forget about it. 

So what's the spec for a stock length rod?  I donno... 137mm?
Something like that.

Doesn't really matter.  (!!)  What matters is that all four of your rods
must be of IDENTICAL length.  That's what matters.  Long or short,
you can deal with that but only if they are all the SAME.

But they won't be.  There will be some variation in their center-to-center
length, center of mass and over-all mass.  You'll take care of the weigh
differences during balancing but right now you need to know the
variation in their center-to-center length, which is pretty easy to measure
even with simple tools if you use one journal of a crankcase as your
center on the big end and a well fitted wrist pin on the other.

Con-rods are numbered.  Use their number in your records when you
record the difference in their lengths.  SOP is to identify the shortest rod
then simply record the differences of the other three.  Good rods, you'll
be working in tenths.

What's a well fitted wrist pin?  Oiled and at room temperature, you
should be able to slide the pin into the little-end with your hands.  Once
in, it should fit well enough so that the pin takes at least two or three
seconds to slide OUT when the rod is held horizontally (and the pin is
installed flush).  Slower is better.  At running temps the forged mild steel
rod will expand more than the polished cast iron pin so a good fit is one
that is damned tight at room temperature.  There should never be a
problem with the fit between the pin and the piston because the
coefficient of thermal expansion for aluminum is MUCH greater than for
cast iron; at operating temps the piston will always be an easy fit on the
pin even if they are locked together at room temperature.  (You generally
heat the pistons to install/remove the pin.)

A lot of rods aimed at the kiddie trade or used by lo-buck rebuilders
aren't even overhauled.  They just knurl the bushing and hone it back to
size and merely hit the big-end with a hammer before honing if they
bother to hone it at all.  Shop by price, you'll end up buying junk.  Good
shops are proud of the quality of their work, offer no objection if you
want to mike a part now & then.  Ditto for good dealers.  The other kind
don't want anything to do with real mechanics.  And get their wish :-)

PISTONS & CYLINDERS

Pistons & cylinders are manufactured individually then sorted according
to their finished diameter (for jugs) and weight (for pistons).  The
different sizes and weights are identified by dots of colored paint on the
pistons.

In manufacturing a cylinder barrel the raw casting is first machined then
the machined barrel is honed to remove the tool marks.  In the process of
machining a given number of cylinders, the finished bore will become
gradually smaller as the tool-bit wears down.  When it gets to a certain
minimum size they stop the machine and set it back up with a new boring
tool.  The point here is that the inside diameter of the jugs being
produced will fall across a certain range of diameters.  This is normal.

The honed jugs are measured and divided into groups according to some
standard deviation in their diameter, typically about a thousandth of an
inch.  But even with that small a standard, with four jugs from the same
size-group you can expect to find a variation in their diameter.  It won't
be much but you need check it.

Volkswagen used cast aluminum pistons from permanent molds.  The
density of cast aluminum varies slightly according to how much metal is
in the smelting pot, its temperature and how long its been there.  The
castings are then machined to a given diameter, for the grooves where
piston rings, for the wrist pin and for the top of the piston.  All other
surfaces are usually left as-cast.  As with all machining operations, the
finished dimensions will fall across a range of sizes.

The combination of differing density in the aluminum alloy and variations
in the as-cast dimensions causes VW pistons to vary in weight by as
much as an ounce (!)  Even by 1930's standards that's a bit much so the
pistons get sorted into three weight groups with each group having a
maximum variation of ten grams.

The nominal dimension of the piston (i.e., its size group)  is stamped on
the top and a dot of colored paint is used to indicate which direction its
actual dimension deviates from the stamped figure.  A dot of colored
paint is used to indicate the piston's weight group and a plus or minus
symbol is stamped into the top of the piston to indicate if the piston's
weight is above or below the nominal weight for that group.

The pistons are divided into groups according to their weight and within
each weight group, are divided into groups according to their diameter,
allowing them to be matched with suitable jugs, fitted with rings and
packaged for shipment.  Stock jugs used to be available individually;
nowadays all you'll see are sets of four.

But your carton of new pistons & cylinders may arrive as a grossly mis-
matched set of junk.  Here's why: Some after-market retails -- or the
clerks who work for them -- tear open the boxes and shuffle sets around
to make up sets having the largest bore diameter and identical weight
markings.  Some dealers even brag about this in their advertising,
referring to such sets as the 'pick of the litter' that need no further
balancing.  And sell such sets at inflated prices.

It's all bullshit of course.  With a weight group encompassing ten grams,
with two divisions and a mark for high or low the best you can hope for
is a spread of 2.5g... about 25x worse than a real balancing job.  (Using
an inexpensive electronic scale for measuring and a Dremel tool for
removing metal, the average novice has no trouble matching four pistons
to within a gram or two.)

But the most interesting point of all this is what happens AFTER those
sets of pistons have been pawed over by the clerks.  They get tossed back
into the boxes willy-nilly and sold to unsuspecting suckers, including
other retailers. 

The tricky bit here is that you can't balance a set of pistons if they span
TWO weight groups.  Pistons are provided with extra metal in the form
of 'balancing pads,' areas from which you may remove metal without
effecting the strength of the piston.  But the maximum amount you can
remove is only a few grams.  That isn't a problem when all of the pistons
are from the same weight group.  But with MIXED weight groups you're
liable to see as much as 20 GRAMS difference across your four brand
new jugs.  Not only does that violate the factory spec of 10g, the
difference is too large to be balanced out - - there simply isn't enough
metal that can be safely removed.

You just paid good money for a set of new jugs that are junk.

But this is about compression ratio so let's get back to that.

First thing you gotta do is examine your new set of P&C's to make sure
they are of the same size group (ie, the variation of diameter)  and within
the same weight group.  That is, all four of the jugs in the box should
have the same color code for dimension and  the same color basic color
code for weight group. The code for plus & minus doesn't matter
because you're going to have them re-balanced to a finer standard of
precision (i.e., typically +/- 0.1g across a set of 4).

You should do all that before you buy them.  And yes, you can get
royally screwed when buying through the mail.  No, I won't recommend
anyone -- I've been sued both ways on that one, once because a guy was
unhappy with someone I recommended and another time by a dealer
because I DIDN'T recommend him.  So go fish.  And good luck.
Because getting a set of P&C's that hasn't been tampered with is just the
start of the story.

Once you have a set of P&C you'll need to put identifying marks on the
jugs and record the marks and the dimensions in your notes.   I file
notches in the flat area of the upper-most fin.  When you have more than
one engine in the shop at a time, keeping their parts separate can be a
problem.  I use a series of adjoining notches to identify the set then one
to four additional notches, spaced apart, to identify a particular jug within
a set.  The notches are cut with die-grinder as soon as I open the box.
The pistons have to stay with their particular jug so you need to put a
matching mark or number on the underside of that piston.  I use a
vibrating scriber.

Begin your measurements with the distance between the deck lip and the
top of the cylinder barrel.  The easy way to do this is to just stand the
thing on its head and use a surface gauge to find the tallest barrel then
record any difference in the other three.  Here again, you can expect
some small variation.

Barrel length is an especially critical dimension in an horizontally
opposed engine since it is the foundation of the valve train geometry.
This dimension is even more important in horizontally opposed engines
like the Volkswagen which depend upon head studs (or stays) to
maintain the seal between the cylinder and the head since any difference
in the length of the barrels will impose an asymmetric load on the sealing
surface leading to compression leaks. 

After measuring the length of the barrels the pistons are removed and the
pin height is measured.  Follow the same general procedure; put the
piston, head down, on a surface plate, use a gauge to find the tallest then
record the difference between it and the other.  (As a point of interest, in
most cases there's nothing to record - - the dimensions match to within
less than a thousandth of an inch and an amount that small is generally
not significant.  What I'm really looking for here is any radical departure
from the norm.)

The rings get removed and a lot of other work gets done but we're only
talking CR here so I won't go into the other stuff.

CYLINDER HEADS

As with the jugs, when measuring the heads you must first identify them.
Through the course of assembling an engine the heads get a lot of work
done to them and you need to keep good records.  I stamp  numbers on
them, over by the right-hand exhaust stack (right-hand looking into the
chambers, push-rods down).  Doesn't really matter how you identify them
just so you do.  I use stamped numbers because in prepping a set of
heads I usually replace some of the guides, run them through the blasting
cabinet to roughen up certain areas then open up the chambers, unshroud
the valves and do a few other things, most of which will destroy any kind
of temporary markings.

On the chamber-side of the head casting you will find either a fully
machined flat area surrounding the chambers (old style heads) or six
machined bosses, three to each chamber.  The horizontal plane defined by
the machined surface is the base-line for all of your head dimensions.

You need to know the distance from that horizontal plane to the sealing
surface of the combustion chamber.  More specifically, you want that
distance to be as close to identical as possible for both heads and, within
a head, for both chambers.

This dimension can be all over the map if the heads have been opened up
by a schlock shop.  Good shop, any variation should only be a few tenths
(ie, ten-thousandths of an inch) up to a max of half a thou (ie, fifty
ten-thousandths).  Shlock shop, using a cutter in a drill press, you won't
believe the crap they turn out.

This dimension is especially critical in the fabrication of a good VW
engine.  If this distance varies by more than two thou between the
chambers of the same head, or by five thou between a pair of heads,
have the heads fly-cut by the minimum amount needed to arrive at a
uniform figure for all four chambers.   

With measurements for the case deck height, barrel length, rod length
and piston head height, and knowing the compression ratio you are
planning to use, measuring your chamber volumes tells you how much
you will have to open them up to achieve the desired compression ratio.
Indeed, once you've nailed down a few dimensions, setting up the correct
compression ratio becomes something of a no-brainer.

And somewhere about now you'll realize this message wasn't about
compression ratio at all :-)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There are two main reasons for doing the work described above.  The
first is to be able to identify good parts from bad parts.  You can't make
this determination by price nor the fact the part is new, rebuilt or
whatever.  Nowadays there is so much junk out there the wiser course is
to assume you're dealing with shoddy goods until its specs prove
otherwise.

As you progress through the measurement of the parts you begin to see
ways in which you can combine those parts so as to arrive at the most
dimensionally-uniform result.  For example, a slightly short throw on the
crank can be combined with a slightly long rod.  The same is true for the
jugs and the heads in that some combinations may be used to cancel out
dimensional variations.

A nice point to keep in mind here is that the 'assembly' of a 'paper'
engine is an arm-chair activity.  You may take as long you wish, shuffling
the numbers about in every possible combination until you arrive the one
that makes the best possible use of that particular set of parts.

OF THAT PARTICULAR SET OF PARTS...

Did the light-bulb come on over your head?  You see, the typical engine-
builder can only afford ONE set of parts.  And as much as I hate to say it,
if you simply bolt them together the odds of getting a good engine are
vanishingly small.  Oh, it'll run.  Veedubs are robust little buggers...
ANYTHING will run.  But if you simply throw the thing together it will
not run as well as it should nor last as long as it could.  And you won't
know the difference.

But I'm not a machinist... (I heard someone shout).

Neither was W. Edwards Deming.  He was a statistician with the Bureau
of the Census.  (Never heard of him?  Your loss.)

The truth is, you don't need to be a machinist to build a better engine.
You can do that by simply taking a few measurements and keeping good
notes.  That's enough to keep you from building a total piece of shit.
When you subtract the POS Probability Factor from the engine building
equation you AUTOMATICALLY end up with a better engine.  How
much better?  On average, about twice as good.  Yeah, I know... nobody
else believes it either.  Except for the guys who have done it.  (Didja read
my article on dialing in your cam?  Ditto.)

Up to you.  It's your engine.

-R.S.Hoover

BOB THE PLUMBER

2009-05-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

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When you live in an old house you can expect to do lots of minor repairs. Such as plumbing. In the time I've been ill a surprising number of chores have piled up. Family and friends have pitched in but some are major tasks, such as keeping our property trimmed down so as to prevent less of a fire hazard. Unable to do the trimming and tilling myself, the local fire department is threatening us with having the work done by their selected crew and simply sending us the bill, always a bit fatter than when we hire someone ourselves -- and when we do a lot of the work ourselves.

This year I can't do that so we've budgeted for what we can do.

One aspect of fire prevention was plumbing the property with a 2-1/2" water line when I bought the place back in '65. I have 1" and 1-1/2" pipe completely around the house, with heavy hoses for each faucet.

One of the faucets developed a leak.

Fixing faucets, including chucking them in the lathe and turning a new valve seat, is another of those chores you have to keep up with. This post shows what you need to do to repair a particular type of faucet.

In the exploded view you can see that the faucet consists of a shaft, a shaft seal & packing, a washer and a valve seat. The valve seat is what connects to the water pipe. In this case, the pipe is one-inch, stepped down to accept the 3/4" faucet. Two other faucets on this line are only 1/2", their size reflecting the area they have to cover should we need to wet-down the property so as to suppress embers.

To maintain the faucet you may have to replace the packing around the shft, a task that thakes only a few minutes. Usually, the job calls for replacing the neoprene washer. Rarest of all is having the re-machine the seat where the washer forms a seal.

All of my plumbing stuff was kept in a plumber's bag, a white canvas thing with leather re-enforcing the corners. During my illness the bag has vanished. I assume it was simply moved from one place to another but I haven't time to search for it. After going to the lab for my blood-work, we stop by the local Home Depot to pick up the needed gasket. (See above)

Wanna guess what the store no longer carries? Right. But they still have the valve, of course, at about nine dollars.

Vista used to have two well-stocked plumbing stores. They've been forced out of business by Home Depot and Wal-Mart.

When I'm feeling better I'll use a razor to cut out a supply of gaskets for our various valves. And track down the missing plumber's bag.

The photos show what the valve looks like when dismantled. The washer goes in easily, secured by a single Phillips Head screw. Phillips screw drivers come in a variety of sizes. This one calls for a #1. I think the largest we'll see is a #4 but just for insurance I'll make up a few extras in that size.

Finally, back home with the nine dollar valve instead of the five-cent gasket, everything is back together again, making our home that much safer when the fires come roaring down from the hills.

-R.S.Hoover

TABLE SAW, Part 2

2009-05-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

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This will give you some idea of the size of the table saw. The portable circular saw is fastened to the underside of the top and controlled by a switch attached to the forward edge of the table. The switch and the saw can be removed, giving you a table roughly 2 x 4 feet. Or the table may be placed across saw-horses and used as a regular table saw.

If you wish to have a pedestal -- I recommend it -- you will need to make something similar to what is shown in the following illustration. The pedestal is designed to fit into recesses left in the under-side of the table. Shelves in the pedestal are meant to be stacked with bricks so as to increase the mass of the table, which may be fitted with rubber feet to give it a better grip on a smooth-surfaced floor. An upper shelf is designed to catch saw dust and expel it to the rear.

I made the pedistal (and the table-top) out of the cheapest material I could find -- 1/4" plywood for the pedistal and 1/2" plywood for the top. The thickness of the table-top edge was built-up to 3/4" by gluing on 1-1/2" x 1/4" plaster lath. The pedestal was stiffened by adding 1x2" furring strips.

Although the design looks a bit much, once the principle is understood it goes together rather quickly. Glue was TiteBond III, Weldwood 'Plastic Resin' and Gorilla Glue urethane. Although I tried to keep things square & accurate, I was more interested in knocking the thing together in a hurry. That meant I would need to adjust the squareness of the saw-blade to the table. To accommodate that task I left things a bit loose with regar to the saw so that once everything was assembled I could bed the saw in Bondo or even glue (after waxing the shoe), tap it into alignment with the fence & miter groove then tighten down the saw. Or whatever.

The principle here is quite simple: we've merely attached a portable saw to a table-top surface so as to increase the accuracy and utility of the saw, which will allow us to make the long rip-cuts needed to produce longerons, spar booms and rib sticks. With that in mind, the saw goes together using deck screws making it easily dismantled and stored when not in use.

However, anything worth building is worth doing well, hence the varnish and so forth.

I'll show more of the details in another posting, as well as some samples of the cuts it can make.

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Show & Tell

Wow! I barely got this article loaded before you were knocking on the door (veeduber@chuggers.net) Yes, there will be drawings but it really is a fairly simple project. And yes, it's definitely over-kill if for most Americans, who can probably buy a used table saw for about what it would cost to build this one. But that overlooks two advantages of this project:
1. -- The saw can be assembled or disassembled in a matter of minutes and may be stored under a bed or hung from a sturdy peg on a wall.
2. -- This article with its drawings and photos provides a concept that may be new to you if you haven't grown up with tools and with using them as an every-day part of your life.

(Dear Raj, I assume you are living in an apartment house. ) The fact this table saw can be dismantled and stowed away, is a feature of interest even to those who can afford a small table saw.

-R.S.Hoover

-R.S.Hoover

Mid-day Pills

2009-05-20T12:21:00.000-07:00

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Some pills -- the white capsule with the black stripe -- make you want to puke. Sort that one out, take it by itself, sipping my way through half a pint of water. Wait, as my mouth floods with saliva and cramps ripple through my abdomen. It will fade away in about fifteen minutes. I use the time to take my vitals.

I'm doing pretty good today:
95% @ 58
123/76
96.8 degrees F.
158 lb (nude)

After sipping the glass of water I pour another, toss the remaining five pills down the hatch, followed by more water. Lotsa water... at least 7 glasses per day. One of those 'unimportant' details that turns out to be of critical importance as to how your body takes-up the chemicals.

Dressing for the Vampire Shop. Cell phone on my left hip. Pocket knife in right pocket. (Don't ask... call it a Guy Thing. Or a life-long habit.) Bucks-worth of change. My 'doctor' wallet is a little bill-fold that fits in my left shirt pocket. For company it gets one of those slip-on dark glasses things, the kind they give you after an eye examine. I've got prescription sunglasses but they're too bulky. Ball point pin also goes into Left-front.

Right shirt pocket gets an Albuterol inhaler and a bottle of 'emergency' pain pills. The drive is only about twenty minutes but some streets are rougher than a cob.

The paper-work is in 7x9 'record' book that gets filled up rather quickly. Data of any importance will be transcribed into the computer, on one of two files; a basic spread-sheet that also triggers reminders of appointments in my incoming mail, and a program specific to multiple myeloma. This is another spreadsheet but one that has been standardized and distributed by the International Myeloma Foundation -- the IMF. Periodic compilations will be transferred to the IMF's files.

First page of the 'record' book is a check-off sheet, to make sure I have what is needed for whatever type of visit I'm down for. Today is the basic Blood Work. Since it is a Standing Order there is nothing I have to bring with me other than an accessible vein or two. In the back of the book is a computer-generated list of my medications. New people at the various offices usually want to know what I'm taking, when I'm taking it, and how much. So we keep things up to date.

Pills all taken, vitals recorded, we're ready to fly.

-Bob Hoover

Addendum: Someone wrote to ask, "Why 'nude'?" Because I had just bathed, an event worthy of an entire posting of its own because it was a shower-bath, meaning I had to remain standing whilst bending and scrubbing an doing all manner of things that generate whole symphonies of pain. Risky, too. An earlier effort brought on a series of spasms that caused me to fall. I had to crawl out of he shower -- it's the little one in the bathroom off the kitchen that I have homesteaded since the Cancer arrived -- to crawl out of the shower backwards then use the toilet to help me get back to a sitting position, in which the spasm slowly released its grip and I was able to dry myself. I tried it again, after the epidural procedure, with my wife standing guard. At the first shivering ripple of pain I poked my head past the curtain and she fed me a pain killer like an African bird sealed up in it's nest.

This time was different. I took my morning pills, which includes a pain killer, later than usual, then took another just before taking my shower, which I was able to complete, as well as the tooth-scrubbing and neck-shaving which followed, either one of which calls for a posture that forces me to complete the task while seated; pesky little details I would normally not share with you.

Here I am! (Waving)

2009-05-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

No, over here!

And there I am, suddenly back from Google's mysterious glitch. No explanation of course. But I poke my screen-name & password into the hole in the hollow tree, just the way I've been doing it for however long it has been. And suddenly there I am! The magic mirror is working again. Captain Midnight's De-Coder Ring whirls into action and all your Secret Messages come tumbling from the chute. Yes, you may use rocker arms of different lengths in the same engine. Then a pile of questions for which I don't know the answer... and tell them so. And another pile of airplane questions, most of which will take some time to answer correctly because I no longer trust my personal Memory Bank since my stroke and flying is one hobby that can get you killed.

Kinda like being knocked off the Internet.

Which produced a new email address for me: veeduber@chuggers.net

Yeah, it costs money. But the money buys you names and telephone numbers of people you can call when the system goes suddenly klunk! in the night and leaves you with nothing but a blinking cursor and a beige box that blows warm air on your shoe.

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I have a new hole in my back. It was put there on purpose by a Jason M. Miller, a physician who specializes in Pain Management. That is, in reducing it if you've got some, of which I do.

The hole was made by a tool the size of a knitting needle into my Epidural Space, which I understand is a fluid-filled void around the spinal column. The purpose of the hole was to inject Narcotics and Steroids into that space, causing the nerves which run through it to stop carrying their Pain Signals.

So howz it working out? Eh... sorta same-old same-old. But better, I think. The Killer Spasms haven't shown themselves but they are so painful that I'm afraid to risk their ire by saying they are gone for good.

There is still a limit to how long I can stand up and walk around. But the pain engendered by that activity is definitely less. It is still too painful to push it; when the Pain arrives I've got to sit down or I will soon find myself on my hand & knees. But the pain occurs lower down than before. And its intensity is definitely less. So I think it's fair to say that some Progress has been made.

Is this topic of any interest? It is to me, since the Pain is like a prison sentence. Were it not for the Pain I would be doing more things in the shop. But it may be of no interest to you. As it now stands the Pain is my excuse and explanation for not doing a lot of things I was doing before; things I shared with many of you and which I know you were interested in.

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Have you read 'The Ugliest Toolbox'?

It is the first article I uploaded when I created this blog. Somewhere in this blog are the illustrations showing how to cut & drill the pieces of metal which, when riveted together, become a clunky but serviceable toolbox, large enough to hold a tin-benders basic kit of tools. The late Jim Holland and I are guilty of showing local Boy Scouts how to make the toolbox, which was a bit of a scam since what we wanted to teach them was basic sheet-metal work, including riveting. And we did, for a couple of years back when I was still in the Navy.

I mention it here because there were two groups of guys making toolboxes when Google pulled my plug. I eventually got re-connected but a strange thing happened to one of the groups. They decided the toolbox was too basic and stopped working on them, which kinda reminded me of the Ugliest Toolbox.

I suppose there are such things that are too simple to justify our attention but the most valuable lesson contained in the Ugliest Toolbox is how to build an airplane, a house or anything else. And if that sounds impossible, it's not.

Wanna know the best kept secret of the ages? Wanna know how you can build your own airplane? Well... okay, I'll tell ya. But you got to promise to keep it a secret.

Here it is: Do something every day. That is, something leading toward the completion of whatever it is you're trying to do, such as building a house, overhauling an antique car, building an airplane from scratch... It doesn't matter what you're building. Or rather, trying to build. The secret of success is to do something every single day. It doesn't matter what it is... drilling a single hole, setting a single rivet or whatever, what matters is that you Do It! Every day. No exceptions nor excuses.

Here's why it works: Every project has a finite number of steps. If you do even one of those steps every day you will eventually run out of things to do; the project will be finished.

No, you can't make bargains with yourself, such as promising to do five things next Saturday instead of one thing every night for the coming week. That's not allowed. You have to do something every single day.

What you're doing here is developing the habit of doing something every day.

Yeah, it sounds kinda wacky. But it works.

-R.S.Hoover

BOB HOOVER... LIVE!

2009-04-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

To All:

That's meant to be a kind of joke, see... because I have cancer I'm never too sure I'll wake up in the morning so I thought labeling a post as 'Live' would be something of a play on words.

But the title also emphasizes an on-going problem I'm having with Google and my memory, in that I often forget my User Name and Password, making it impossible for me to either SEND or RECEIVE messages. This morning for example, Google says my current User Names and Passwords will no longer be valid; that I will have to jump through various Google-hoops to make things right. But when you try to do that you get an ERROR MESSAGE saying to try again in a few minutes. The Mystery Time is not defined. Five minutes? No, that's not enough. Ten minutes? Ditto. Indeed, it appears that Google's error-handling procedure may well have an error of its own, in that, while it SAYS to do this and go there, it doesn't actually work. If the problem persists you're told to contact yet another address. Which of course does not work either.

But I am still alive! Honest! And people still send me email asking questions about their VW engines, converted for flight or otherwise. And I keep trying to respond because I assume you would like to receive an answer. But given the amount of errors, trying to stay in touch becomes horribly frustrating.

-R.S.Hoover

The Chugger

2009-04-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

The above is a sketch of 'Chugger,' a minimum cost design meant to be fabricated using wood from the typical lumber yard. The engine is a Volkswagen, converted to put the propeller on the flywheel end of the crankshaft, where it will be immediately adjacent to the thrust bearing.

In American slang a 'chugger' is a person or machine that isn't very sophisticated yet manages to get the job done.

The minimum cost aspect of the design is achieved by using lumber that is locally available. This point keeps popping up, despite the fact the Government has not been in the business of grading wood since the 1950's. What you get when you buy 'aviation-grade' lumber is a piece of wood that has been graded by someone at the saw-mill. Or at the retailers. It will be nice, clear lumber, graded according to those standards of long ago but you won't find a government stamp on it. Most of it will be Sitka Spruce unless you have asked for something different, such as Douglas Fir or perhaps Northern White Pine. (The government inspection criteria covered more than two-dozen species of softwoods commonly used in the structure of lightplanes.)

I continue to receive more messages on this aspect of Chugger's construction than all others combined. I've nothing against the use of certified materials. For example, I still want you to use aviation-grade plywood, although not very much of it.

In recent weeks several prospective builders have swished past the earlier version of the drawings, some are even willing to fly it to the various fly-ins... if I'll give them a flyable copy of Chugger to keep as their own. I take that to mean they've found nothing fatally flawed in the design.

Except for the use of Blog Store lumber.

I think everyone is wrong in that regard and I believe I can prove it.

If you will click on the opening drawing it will expand to fill your screen. The firewall is 24" in height which should allow you to get a rough estimation of the length of the remaining sticks(*).

I will agree that it is difficult to find aviation-grade lumber long enough for spar caps or longerons but the drawing makes it clear that most of the required pieces are quite short. You will have no trouble finding sticks of that size by simply ripping a 2x4 or even a furring strip. Indeed, here in Southern California the decline of our economy has left the lumber department of most blog stores as empty as the Kalahari.. This aspect of wood-quality is equally true for the wing. The point here is that aviation-quality wood is available from local lumber yards. The only tricky part is that you must spend some time grading it.

The common myth that wooden airplanes are made entirely of wood is simply not true. Indeed, many potential builders prefer aluminum or rag & tube because such airframes require fewer tools and far fewer skills.

The second drawing, which should be wandering about near this paragraph is meant to serve two purposes, the first of which is to give the reader some idea as to the number and location of the metal fittings. The idea here is build this much of the fuselage as mock-up for the fitting & welding of the metal fixtures for such things as the landing gear, the wing-strut attach points, and the cabanes. Not shown are the Cub-type landing gear Vee, the control stick and the rudder pedals. These were not shown partly because I forgot to put them in but also because they are so simple they are easy to forget.

As the Chugger's drawngs are developed they are being posted in the Chuggers-alt Group. But nothing is in its final form. As I've said in the Introduction, the Files represent a series of experiments, conducted for the purpose of proving or disproving the practicality of building an airplane that draws most of its materials from local sources.

If you find the Chugger of interest please have the courtesy to read the Introduction.

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(*) The lumber carried by the Box Stores usually has too many knots to pass the old government standards in lengths of twelve feet or more. But it's not uncommon to find a knotty 2x6 that passes -- or even surpasses -- the old certification specs. Unfortunaely, the longest peice without a knot is only six feet or so.

If you find a stick like that, grab it! After you have re-sawn the stick into 3/4" by 1" sticks, even though it is liable to break at the knot you are still left with two perfectly good pieces! Indeed, if you'll examine the top drawing you will see that the longerons are quite short. While it may be necessary to scarf some pieces together to obtain the needed length, by building the splice right in to the design I should be able to find pieces of the required length without having to re-saw very many pieces.

-R.S.Hoover

Harvesting Data

2009-04-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

Most guys call it blueprinting. You measure the part then check the measurement against the 'blueprint.' Which hasn't been a real blueprint since the 1930's. Nowadays it's just a file of dimensions and tolerances provided by the manufacturer, usually in their Factory Service Manual. Alas, the task isn't as simple as it seems. In many cases the factory manual cites only metric dimensions, leaving the conversion up to you. In other cases they cite both Metric and English units of measurement... and sometimes gets them wrong, requiring you to keep on your toes when they say one millimeter equals 0.3937" ...when they should have said 0.03937".

An even trickier bit is what happens when you depart from those stock dimensions. When you build a big-bore stroker you are literally designing a new engine. Cutting the heads to accept larger jugs requires you to measure the diameter of your new jugs and then add the anticipated thermal expansion to that dimension, and finally to add some small amount for your tooling wear.

This sort of thing -- the designing of a new engine -- is largely a desk job. No greasy fingernails. And yes, your computer comes in very handy. Not so much for the computation of things but simply for storing them, ideally with drawings.

So where do you come up with those figures that are not listed? Standard engineering manuals, such as Machinery's Handbook will give you the accepted standards for the thermal expansion of your parts but the particular alloy plays a role I'll mention in a moment.

Thermal expansion takes place in all three dimensions. The engineering manuals say that the intra-molecular space will INCREASE as the temperature of the part increases. Some call these dimensions -- the ones not listed for our particular engine -- the experience factor when in fact we've simply memorized the values of interest from tables found in various manuals. Pratt-Whitney and Machinery's Handbook sez 0.003" per inch for cast iron and .007" for cast aluminum... which works well enough for the alloys used by VW in their heads and barrels.

But if you don't know what alloy is being used, you'll be safer if you put the part(s) in an oven and raise them to their anticipated normal temperature. And learn to measure them quick like a bunny, before they can cool off and before they can heat-up your micrometer. That's enough to give you some idea of the problem, which is the fact your heads and barrels will expand at different rates.

Not everyone does it that way. In fact, a lot of 'experts' don't blueprint anything. Their engines usually end up in dune buggies but there's a few who build engines for airplanes. In doing so they follow the same procedures -- and use the same tolerances -- they have used for dune buggies. This entails considerable risk because there are significant differences between the VW engine in a vehicle and one that has been converted for flight. The most evident of these differences is the higher temperatures experienced in engines converted for flight. This higher temperature reflects the fact that a flying Volkswagen is operating at a continuous level of output at least fifty percent greater than that found in any vehicular engine.

The builders of dune insist there is no difference between their engines and those used for flight and that is substantially correct. But there is a profound difference in how the engine is USED and that is easily illustrated by the fact an airplane must sustain itself in the air. To do so demands a higher level of output on a continuous basis.

-R.S.Hoover

The Follower Phenom

2009-04-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

Uh-oh. What's this?

In the military one of the targets used on the pistol range was a silhouette of the upper torso. To maintain our proficiency with handguns we would periodically go down to the Pistol Range and shoot holes in those Silhouette Targets. Now Google is putting silhouette targets on one of the pages supporting my Blog. Pistol target with 'Followers' underneath.

Little green Silhouette Targets on the Dashboard page, which I've not visited since... whatever. I dig around here & there... I haven't had much luck as a blogger. For example, I didn't know they paid you for blogging! I'm still not too clear on how it works. Sometimes Google sends me money. And sometimes they don't. After a while they apologize for not sending anything, promise to do better. And don't.

Then there are the things they simply whip outta thin air, full-grown, which they apparently expect me to be fully aware of, when in fact I'm barely aware of them, let alone the weird stuff they are continually creating, apparently having mistaken activity for progress. Like this 'Follower' business. I dig around trying to find out what this latest phenom entails but come up dry.

Surely 'Follower' doesn't actually mean Follower! Because if it did, it would mean I have been promoted to Fearless Leader... like that guy in N. Korea with the bad comb-over. Is that how people see me? As a Nutsy Cookoo? Trouble is, the Korean Cookoo is desperately eager to be a Fearless Leader and I am not. So which is it?

Click the icon and sure enough, a page pops up with a list of people. I recognize a couple of the names but others are complete strangers. Which worries me even more. I'm happy to meet these people; happy they've found something useful in the material I've posted. But to me follower implies leader and that's the part that worries me. Is there something I should be doing to fulfill my new role?

I've tried to find more information about Followers but the only meaningful thing I've heard is that it's people who want to maintain closer ties to me. If that's the case, my email address is veeduber@chuggers.net.

However, if the 'closer ties' means telephone numbers and that sort of thing, when someone calls I generally can't get to the telephone before the ringer times out and the pre-recorded voice tells them to leave a message. I've got a cell phone but I don't know my number. The cell phone was a gift from my wife when I became ill. But I don't use it very often.

When my sister was ill I was expecting her to return my call. When the phone rang I tried running, hoping to catch it before it timed out. Bad idea. I managed to trip myself up and took a bit of a fall. Scared the hell out of my wife and made me feel like an idiot.

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So... welcome, all you Followers. As your Leader I'm not too sure what my duties are but I'll try to do my best.

Right now I've been studying the strength of various woods, trying to come up with a simple procedure. Turns out, it's not as simple as I thought. I began with the procedures described by the Forest Products Laboratory but if you use their sample sizes you will need some rather large weights, so that by the time I was able to make my samples fail, the patio looked like an annex of the FPL. Which caused me to try using smaller samples, such as 1 square inch rather than four. And most recently, 1/4 of a square inch.

Samples using a quarter of a square inch reduce the test to table-top dimensions but the tests also produce a lot of 'scatter' in their results. Which lead to my trying to use samples that were the actual size of the wood being used. That turned out to be a pretty good idea because in every test I've done, the part was STRONGER than it needed to be.

I've designed the 'Chugger' to have a maximum gross weight of 850 pounds (1870kg) and to withstand four g's. That is, the wing, tail, and engine mount are supposed to survive a momentary overload of 7580Kg or 3400 pounds. So far I've been able to verify this for everything except the landing gear, which I'm still working on.

-R.S.Hoover

On the Wearing Out of Things

2009-04-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

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Strop my old cut-throat razor as good as I can, that ten-cent throw-away it's laying on will give me a better shave. Oh, maybe not for the first stroke or two. Well-steamed whiskers under a layer of hot lather, there's a velvet touch to that first stroke of the blade. But after that the edge on the throw-away will pull steadily ahead until you feel slightly foolish, bobbing and weaving against your image in the outside mirror while the other campers try not to stare.

Little boy whispers too loudly to his dad: "What's that old man doing?" It's called shaving, son. Yes, even with a beard you need to touch-up the trim-work now & then. So rarely that an old fashioned razor makes good sense. That is, I used to think it did. But since I started adding to the planet's land-fill I'm forced to admit that a throw-away gives me a better shave.

The reason why that is true has a lot in common with why a lot of home-builders are throwing away as much as twenty-five percent of their engine's power. 25%

Impossible! (I heard someone say. Probably the grandson of the fellow who said nothing would ever beat his cut-throat razor.) The reason it is possible is because the fellow has never flown -- nor driven -- a professionally-built engine. And before you start telling me that I have to be wrong I'd like you to take another look at that old straight-razor of mine. Sharpen it to perfection and within half a stroke you can feel it starting to drag. That's all it takes to turn the edge. You can restore it by a few judicious strokes on your finest strop but you will have to repeat the process, half a stroke then strop... half a stroke then strop... as your shave progresses. By comparison the machine-sharpened blade in that inexpensive throw-away is good for about one and a half shaves before it even begins to dull.

There's really nothing new in all that. Cutting tools dull in use, especially so when cutting metal. For example, when cutting the bores for the crankshaft and camshaft, they will start with multi-point cutting bar that creates a hole on the high side of the allowed tolerance. After cutting a certain number of crankcases they will gauge the bores, then cut a few more, gauge it again and keep repeating the process of cutting and gauging until the inspector tells the machinist it's time to replace his cutting tools.

In other words, there isn't a single perfect size but a range of sizes that grow steadily smaller as the machinist produces crankcases. This difference in size represents the tolerance for that particular machining operation. (You will find all of the tolerances listed in the factory workshop manual.)

Machining the bores for the two shafts generates a third dimension and its related tolerance. That's the distance between the center-line of the bores. Since the two shafts are coupled together by a pair of gears you will also find a range of acceptable gear sizes, each having its own tolerance.

Volkswagen used nine different sizes of gears. To properly assemble a VW engine your first step is to determine the fit of the valve gear. Which begs the question: What size valve gear does your engine use?

When you assemble an engine using the wrong size of valve gear two things are immediately evident. One is that the steel cam driver gear will commence to chew up the aluminum driven gear, generating lots of swarf to block your filter and contaminate your bearings. The other thing is that the engine will not produce as much power as if would if fitted with the proper gearing. But worst of all is the culmination of those two errors. Not only is the bad to begin with, it will become steadily worse in use.

Engines are incapable of healing themselves. Start with a bad lower end and things can only get worse. But engines are capable of humor. Ask someone what size cam gear their engine uses and the odds are they won't be able to tell you, even though they have just spent half an hour expounding upon their experience as a builder of VW engines. And while they can't tell you what size gear they used -- many will even argue that only one size is available -- they are equally sure that, whatever size was needed is exactly the size they've used :-)

The reason I've mentioned all this has to do with the following scenario: Someone has just spent a sinful amount of money to assemble a 2180cc VW engine. But having done so, when pitted against a supposedly identical airframe and power-plant they have discovered their engine is not quite as powerful as they expected. Indeed, a few have had the unfortunate experience of having a similar airplane fitted with a smaller engine out-climb them. And go faster. And burn less fuel.

Obviously, something is seriously wrong. He's paid all that lovely money and done everything the various experts have told him to do but he's in much the same situation as the fellow with an old straight-razor who discovers he can get a better shave from an imported throw-away that costs only a dime.

Another aspect of this scenario is purely personal and may be an error on my part. As best I can recall, I used to be asked what's wrong with my engine three or four times a year. But since being diagnosed with cancer (June, 2008) it seems that question is popping up more frequently than before. (I can imagine what you're thinking. Believe me, pard, I've been thinking the same thing :-) But win, lose or draw, I think all we can do is play the cards we're dealt. So, whether the question has been coming up more frequently... or even if I'm just thinking it has, it seems worth addressing, which is the purpose of this article.

So how do you help someone diagnose an engine problem via email? It's a bit harder than it may appear because while you must address the engine as a system -- as something that must work together as an harmonious whole -- when the components are produced by a chaotic collection of manufacturers, you must begin at the component level and work your way up. Each component is blueprinted, then components are assembled into sub-assemblies and -- finally -- you can assemble the sub-assemblies into that harmonious whole.

The reason this difficult is not the blueprinting nor the assembling into sub-assemblies. Those tasks, while time consuming, are quite straight-forward. The difficulty arises from what you must do when a part or sub-assembly FAILS to meet its required specifications.

In a factory, any part or sub-assembly that fails to meet spec is simply laid aside to be re-worked, substituting parts until you achieve the desired goal. But the homebuilder is usually working with only ONE ENGINE'S-WORTH OF PARTS. If they are an experienced automotive machinist they may elect to re-manufacture the supposedly 'new' part. Or they can try to get the supply to ship them a replacement. Or whatever. The truth is, the MOST DIFFICULT part of assembling an engine today is simply finding one engine's-worth of parts.

Many of the fellows needing help have removed and dismantled their engine, looking for the Smoking Gun that is preventing them from flying as fast or climbing as quickly as those Other Guys.

But when the engine is still on the airplane, and has flown enough hours to establish a history -- say, a hundred hours or so -- you can leave it alone and assume it has been properly assembled. And yes, it is a risky assumption; a double-edged blade that can cut you both ways. Such as the fellow who casually asks: "You keep mentioning Compression Ratio... What is that, exactly?" Or the fellow who thinks a 300 fpm Rate of Climb is okay... in an airplane that normally climbs at about a thousand feet per minute.

What you're running into here is the fact that in many cases the person seeking advice is unable to evaluate good performance from bad performance because they have only one airplane's-worth of experience. Or the fellow who's engine has more than an eighth of an inch of end-play. But it starts at the first flip of the prop and never gives any problems... So why should he change things?

(Yeah, I'm smiling too. But I'm also serious. I get a lot of questions you really would not believe.)

So the root of the Decision Tree is bifurcated into Component Level Questions and Hundred Hour Questions. For the purpose of this article I'm going to start with the Hundred Hour Questions and do so by starting with the Lower End -- crankshaft, camshaft, con-rods, pistons & jugs, cam gearing, valve timing and so forth: the foundation of the engine.

Ninty-nine times out of a hundred the search ends at the cam gear. There is simply no reason to continue when we lack the basis for setting the valve-train geometry. And when you can't set your valve train geometry the probability of giving away as much as 25% of your power is very real indeed. As is the likelihood that you would not be aware of it. In fact, there is no accepted standard of success when it comes to the conversion of Volkswagen engine for flight. The fellow has assembled an engine and the thing actually ran! Even more amazing, it produced enough power to fly the plane! Clearly, we are dealing with the epitome of success. To have someone come along and imply that things could be even better...

The only down-side to the supposition that any engine which runs and produces enough power to fly the plane is a success is the specter of catastrophic failure. One of the most compelling reasons for the use of an Otto Cycle engine is that it provides a number of easily recognized precursors well in advance of any mechanical failure. But that is only valid when the engine was properly assembled to begin with.

-R.S.Hoover

Cure!

2009-04-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

Gotcha!

Well... sorta gotcha. It's actually 'cure'. Lower case and quotes... because it is a magazine.

Yup, they seem to have one for everything nowadays. It's a quarterly and as you may have guessed, it's a freebie... if you've got the Big C... or have had the Big C... or know someone who has. Or had. Or whatever. If for some incredible reason you don't qualify for a free subscription -- such as living on the planet Logoff -- then it's twenty bucks a year. So... on the up-side it's another source of information for me to add to an already mind-boggling work-load but the down-side is that it appears to be just another outlet for pharmaceutical PR. Still, I have got to read it.

Some of you won't understand the absolute imperative there so lemme run it by you.

Mention car, firearm, airplane or half a dozen other things and all you'll get out of me is a nod; yep; got all that; let's move on. In those areas I am adept. Not a tinkerer nor a casual user but someone who can build you a car. Or an airplane. Or a mechanical clock that keeps reasonably good time. No sense in our discussing those things nor in my reading about them because the odds of encountering something truly new is vanishingly small. Skim it to the point of identifying a linkage to my existing knowledge in that particular field and if you listen very hard you'll hear the gates of my biological copy of Babbage's falling into place. Next topic please. This ability is probably a sex-linked trait as I've only met a handful of women who have it. Oddly enough, while a lot of men -- probably a majority -- have it to some degree, most are not aware of it. Acquisition of this uniquelly male trait has been through peer-group osmosis rather than a conscious effort. Then too, you would probably have to interrogate them rather closely to have them regurgitate the specifics for making steel. But it's all there, mixed up with the inherent male inability to remember dates deemed important to the feminine mind, or to admit to being lost when we haven't got a clue, and the inability not only to lie gracefully but even wanting the native wit to understand the absolute necessity of lying when harmonious interpersonal relationships with opposite sex is the goal. (What does the color of furniture have to do with anything?)

But when it comes to me and cancer, I'm not even up to novice-grade in the knowledge department. Which means if it has ANYTHING to do with cancer, I HAVE to read it. I've no choice in the matter. I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in June of 2008. At a guess I've probably acquired less than 1% of the available information and even that has to be qualified as meaning information in digital form.

It doesn't matter that the new magazine is a gimme, it's value somewhere between a bathroom wall and a bumper sticker, it is a source of information about cancer so I must at least scan it. But even that takes time.

Maybe I'll send them an article about... some damn thing.

-Bob Hoover

The Need to Bleed

2009-04-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

Every Tuesday or Wednesday my wife drives me to a blood-lab over behind Tri-City Hospital where one of several phlebotomists accepts my donation, usually about two ounces but periodically the amount will be twice as much. Sometimes it is significantly more.

One of the drugs I'm taking reduces the blood's clotting time, a precaution against the formation of blood clots. Unfortunately, the drug also prevents the needle's tiny puncture wound from healing as quickly as it should, so that some blood escapes through the hole into the space between the vein and my skin.

The size of the needle determines how quickly the sample can be taken. Most of the time they use a tiny needle, something so small you can barely feel it. But a tiny needle means a tiny amount of flow and when several samples are needed they generally use a larger needle.

It's all relative, of course. All of the needles are tiny. Indeed, it is remarkable that they are hollow. Or that blood, that thick, dark juice, flows through them at all. But sometimes the hole does not close itself up and blood seeps out of the vein into the space under my skin, leaving a purple rose that may persist for as long as two weeks.

After each blood test the lab sends me a copy of the results which I enter into a suit of software obtained from the International Multiple Myeloma Foundation. The physician requesting the test also receives a copy but in a different format. The software I'm using gives me a series of charts that makes any change graphically evident. The nurses and nurse-practitioners also have access to the results. They are common topics of conversation.

I'm presently taking fifteen drugs or mediations. Some inter-act with one-another and those interactions upset the 'scores' from the blood tests. A common chore is to try and achieve a chemically perfect 'score' without causing any harmful side-effects. When that happens it is considered Good News and the phones start to ring, as thy did this past Friday.

This particular 'score' has been difficult to nail down. Each time we got close it triggered an undesireable interaction. When that happened we would have to go back to the drugs; to tinker with their frequency and amount, then work our way back to a mix of drugs that gave stable results. The results from last week's blood test were 'clean' -- the desired score was achieved without any undesireable interaction.

Next week we'll go for the 'big' test, looking for the unwanted interactions among factors we've already nailed-down; among factors we test only once a month rather than once a week. In the meantime we won't talk about it. It has taken ten months to reach this point. Patience is part of our medicine, along with the drugs and the x-rays, MRI scans and all the rest. Patience... and not getting our hopes up.

-R.S.Hoover

Getting Started

2009-04-07T16:56:00.004-07:00

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"Okay," the newbie sez in his message. "What do I have to do to get started? I've got almost a hundred dollars saved up, two junked VW engines I'm taking apart, and I've got access to about a half-car garage."

He goes on to explain that the "half-car garage" is just that. It started out as a two-car garage but one bay was devoted to storage, which took up about half of the space. He's allowed to use the remaining space which -- wonder of wonders! -- contains a Craftsman 10" table saw, a floor-model drill press and a small work bench. There's even a vintage home-made air compressor abandoned by some past tenant -- probably because the thing isn't working.

The air compressor becomes the focus of our messages, which wastes a lot of time and space until he gloms onto an older digital camera declared surplus by a family member who has up-graded to more pixels. With a picture of the recalcitrant compressor the problem is quickly tracked down to the pressure-regulated switch. I had been telling him to look for a black or gray metal box. And there is such a thing... but it is nothing more than an on-off switch. The pressure-regulator switch had lost its box years before probably during an attempt to repair it. All that was left was a leaking diaphragm and a set of adjustable points but not wired.

This wasn't something in need of repair. What it needed was replacement.

"I can't believe it actually works!" he says a few posts-- and about $30 later -- after replacing the regulator switch. Looking back, it was probably a very worth-while bit of work since I was able to refer back to it whenever his confidence needed a boost, which it did in returning the table saw to service.

The saw was rusty, of course. Not the flakey, pitted rust we see here so near the ocean, but the softer, powdery rust that comes from sitting un-used through a decade of mid-western winters.
He didn't quite believe me when I said the cast-iron table of the saw had to come down to a bright finish but after working on a small section he admitted it might be possible, although I'd be long gone before it ever happened. But he kept plugging away, not only on the table saw but on the drill press, restoring them to rather elegantly with the idea of selling. Along he way acquired a zero-clearance shoe for the saw and a vise for the drill press table, for he had come to see the need for such things when building from wood.

The air-compressor acquired a pneumatic brad-driver which, when paired with a jug of foamy glue, allowed him to build things in minutes that would normally take hours. I saw evidence that the half-car shop was becoming more of a home.

An important part of Getting Started was to select a design. Initially he was hot for the VP because he understood it could be built very cheaply. As we spent more time together, electronically speaking, he began exploring other designs and comparing their different methods of fabrication, the need for a zero-clearance shoe to prevent the saw's blade from binding when cutting 1/8" and 1/4" stock, and the need have some organized storage for such stock, since it's small size often leads to problems.

He starts collecting wood and I end up sending him pictures of what's acceptable and what's not. He finally decides to jump in; to build a dummy fuselage based on the FRED but with a number of differences.

There are several First Steps since many of these tasks must be started in parallel with each other, a fact having to do with setting up the saw, then storing what comes out of it.

Table/Building Frame is a major step. It is five selected 2x4's and four selected pieces of 1x12 shelving, eight feet in length, plus half a dozen 1x4's. By 'selected' I mean each piece has been examined for straightness, grain-per-inch, grain run-out and a basic 'feel' for moisture content.

To make the Table/Frame two of the 2x4's get chopped at five feet and butt-spliced to 8' 2x4's, giving a length of 13'. The butt-splice is aligned with 1x4 scab-plates about two feet long, assembled with foamy glue & 6d nails. The basic alignment tool is the floor, which is now carpeted with cardboard. An old comforter becomes the top half of an 'oven with a small light bulb for heat. This produces a pair of 2x4's 13' in length. The remnants of the cut 2x4's are cut to 22" lengths. This is among the hardest of the jobs because the wood is sawn by hand.

The 22" pieces are the ends of what is to be the building frame. One face of the frame is declared to be UP, the other is DOWN. The down face gets a pair of carefully fitted 1x4 diagonals, inlet into the 2x4's with saw & chisel, assembled with 6d's and foamy glue.

The Table/Frame is put aside to cure and the saw is set-up for slicing the shelving into square strips, 5/8" on a side -- the thickness of the shelving. Some of the sticks break across a knot when cut but nothing is thrown away.

The longest sticks are selected for the straightest grain and fewest knots. From the sixty 8' sticks there are several with only one knot and some of those have the knot near one end. These are laid aside for scarfing.

The scarfs are cuts made at an angle of 1 in 15 using a jig built for that purpose. The resulting cut is about ten inches in length. The sticks are marked so their grain is properly oriented when cut, since an up cut must match with a down cut. The goal is to get four longerons at least fourteen feet in length and having just one scarf joint. Despite having 60 pieces to chose from, this happens only once. In all other cases it takes two or more scarfs to make up the required length.

Actually, the fuselage needs only two of these near-perfect longerons: the ones that go on the bottom. The top longeron can have half a dozen or more scarfs since it always lays level. But the lower longeron must be bent and since a scarf joint tends to stiffen the piece, the two sides will have different curves if one is significantly stiffer than the other.

The scarf joints are fabricated with epoxy and great care is taken to ensure the joints are precisely aligned. The pneumatic brad-driver, waxed paper and some scrap wood ensures the sticks are aligned.

USING THE PNEUMATIC BRAD-DRIVER

A major problem with nailing is that the part(s) must have adequate back-up, otherwise much of the energy of the hammer's blow causes the parts being nailed to bounce out of alignment. With the pneumatic brad-driver the brad is driven so quickly that the inertial mass of the parts is usually sufficient to keep them in alignment. The first-time plane-builder must learn all of these things or their labor will be wasted. Indeed, there are so many ways to do things that that it is impossible to simply tell the newbie 'Do it like this...' because his situation may not match that of the person giving the advice.

Once the advantages of using the brad-driver are understood the work begins to go faster.

This is also true with regard to adhesives -- to the glues we are using.

Epoxy is used to splice the longerons because it needs only the pressure of alignment to achieve a good joint, whereas Plastic Resin, Tite-bond III and the urethane glues needs a significant amount of pressure to ensure the adhesive will flow into the capillary structure of the wood. Without adequate pressure to hold the pieces together, the glue will simply force them apart as it cures. When the area of the contacting surfaces is small, you may get sufficient pressure by simply fastening the parts together using brads or pins, but in most cases you will need a couple of brads to keep the parts in alignment plus addition pressure, as provided by a clamp or wedge.

This gluing pressure turns out to be another of the many things the newbie must learn because what appears to be an obvious solution, such as using C-clamps, turns out to be horribly wrong for certain types of glue.

Glues that contain water, such as Weldwood's Plastic Resin or Tite-bond III, cause the wood to swell. This swelling will force the glue-line apart unless there is sufficient pressure to prevent it from doing so. That pressure appears to be about 70 psi. In a similar vein, glues which expand as they cure need a similar amount of pressue although for a different reason. Epoxies do not cause the wood to swell nor does the epoxy expand as it cures. This makes it a near-perfect adhesive, offset by it's lack of convenience (ie, the need to mix components) and its high cost.

Epoxies appear to go through phase of greatly reduced viscosity shortly before hardening. During this hyper-viscosity phase the adhesive appears to be drawn into the micro-structure of the wood by capillary action. While brads or pins are needed to ensure alignment, there is no need for clamping pressure.

In using epoxies without clamps we are taking advantage of the characteristics of that particular adhesive. In later stages we will do the same with the urethane adhesives, hollding small bamboo struts in position with clothes-pins. The adhesive will then expand to completely surround the fixed ends of such struts, forming its own fillets.

In carrying out these exercises our goal is not to build a fuselage, although the finished product will be more than safe enough for that role. Instead, our role is to learn how to build a fuselage using tools, methods and procedures that are unique to our particular situation.

The simple truth is that one set of rules or methods can not be applied to all situations.

BENDING THE LOWER LONGERON TO A 'NATURAL' CURVE

The upper longeron forms our longitudinal reference line. When we start out, it is perfectly horizontal. (And we hope to keep it that way.) But the lower longeron prescribes a graceful curve from the bottom of the firewall, to the bottom of Frame D, and to the bottom of the stern-post. (It really isn't a stern post but we'll call it that to keep from getting it confused with anything else.)

The firewall is twenty-two inches deep, including the thickness of the lower longeron. Using a framing square or other suitable tool, lay-out the centerline of Frame D at 40-1/2" aft of the firewall. It is twenty-four inches deep, including the thickness of the lower longeron. The aft face of the stern-post is 152-3/4" aft of the forward face of the firewall and the stern post is one foot deep, including the thickness of the lower longeron.

There are eleven vertical or diagonal members connecting the upper longeron to the lower. These members are connected to the longerons using a comination of gussets and corner blocking. Using a tape measure and square, we want to transfer the information from the drawing onto the Table/Frame. We want to do this as accurately as possible so that the two side-frames will be as close to identical as possible. Once the fabrication is complete, the Table/Frame deserves a coat of thinned varnish. An area of WHITE paint goes onto varnish at some point. Once the white patch is cured we use an ink marking pen to identify the purpose of the fixture, when it was assemled and by whom. This information patch is usually given a full-coat of varnish.

With rungs on one side and a pair of diagonal braces on the other, the Table/Frame will be quite sturdy. But with a depth of only 3-1/2" it is subject to twisting due to changes in the local temperature & humidity. To straighten it out simply clamp it to your saw-horses.

LIFE WITHOUT SAW-HORSES

Life without saw-horses is a hard life. You must learn to make saw-horses from whatever is available. Such tasks are tests, constantly placed upon you. You must welcome them and offer proof of your worth by solving such problems quickly.

For those of you fortunate enough to find your local Box Store carries a good selection of cedar, suitable not only for the Table/Frame but for the means of supporting it, you will find a Table/Frame made of cedar to be light in weight and easily stored by hanging it on a wall or under the eaves of a building.

To erect the Table/Frame lift one end an fasten two legs to the corners. The keep the legs aligned tack redwood plaster lath between them from head to tail. The result is the Trinity and will not fail. Then go to the other end, raise it up and do the same. Now add additional lath from the rails to the legs so that the Table/Frame is supported to & fro.

Using a heavy mallet or hammer, drive each leg into the ground. Between the ends divide the length by two and put down a leg on the front beam and a leg on the rear beam. Use your brad-driver and plaster-lath to triangulate each of the new legs, first from the front, then from the back. When those triangles have been created, divide the rail on either side of the middle legs in to two and put down another pair of legs.

When you are done the Table/Frame stands on ten legs.

The forward part of the fueselage side will be plated with plywood. The fuselage-side shown at the opening of this article is for the FRED and is plated with 3/32" plywood. But you could use the fuselage for a different airplane and use a different plywood schedule... or none at all.

Notice that the straight top longeron aligns with one edge of the Table/Frame. This alignment is facilitated by adding blocking strips -- short pieces of 1x2 for example -- at a few places between those areas where the struts join the Table/Frame.

Notice that this particular fuselage side-frame uses a Warren Truss. Others may call for a Pratt Truss, a Howe or any of a dozen others.

While the side-rail may seem a bit casual the only practical test is: Does it work? This Table/Frame passes such a test with flying colors.

Once we have assembled a fuselage side we simply make the other side to match. One of the frame becomes the Lefty, the other becomes the Righty and we move on to the next step, which is to join the two side-frames together starting with the cockpit. Once the cockpit area is joined we focus on the nose, then the tail, at which point the fuselage is turned over and the cross-members that constitute the top of the fuselage are installed.

At some point prior to completon of the fuselage we will have fabricated either a wheeled cradle a set of false landing gear so as to make the fuselage mobile. Or, since some of you are simply building the fuselage for the experience, once you have extracted all the data, the fuselage may be stood on its nose in some out of the way corner of the shop.

One very nice advantage of the Table/Frame is that, having produced a fuselage we simply clear away the cross-members that were specific to the fuselage, we can begin fabrication of the spars.

(To Be Continued)

F.R.E.D. the Airplane

2009-04-03T23:17:00.000-07:00

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F.R.E.D. is an airplane designed and built by Mr. Eric Clutton, who will sell you a set of plans, allowing you to build a copy for yourself. F.R.E.D. has a web site but I don't know its address. However, if you type 'F.R.E.D. the airplane' into your browser it should discover FRED's home and point you toward it.

I hold a set of plans for F.R.E.D. because F.R.E.D. uses a Volkswagen engine. Some of the people building F.R.E.D. want to use an engine having the propeller mounted on the clutch-end of the crankshaft. Eric chose to put the prop on the pulley hub and if you want to change things around you try and find someone who already has so you won't have to re-invent the wheel.

When you decide to build an airplane the normal path is often cluttered with the residue of those who have tried and failed. Mr. Clutton has not only tried and succeeded but the people who have purchased his plans have a surprising rate of completion. That isn't to say there aren't a few travails along the way but that is mostly because Mr. Clutton has chosen a path less traveled.

As a family of birds, airplanes have certain shared characteristics. The bird that most closely matches the F.R.E.D. is one having wide wings that are fairly short. In airplane lingo we would say that F.R.E.D. has a low aspect ratio. Aspect Ratio is nothing more than the span of a wing divided by its width. With F.R.E.D. we have a span of twenty-two and a half feet whilst it's chord is only fifty-eight inches, giving us an aspect ratio or AR of about 4.8:1 For comparison, most light-planes have aspect ratios of six or seven. Aspect Ratio can be important because it reflects how much Drag is generated by the wing to produce lift. A high asprect ratio means your design is rather smooth in aerodynamic terms, whereas a low AR says your wing generates a lot of drag. But I should also point out that all such things are relative. A low aspect ratio was one of the trade-offs Mr. Clutton chose to make, in order to come up with a design that suited his particular set of requirements, such as the ability to easily fold the wings, mount a tow bar, hitch F.R.E.D. to his car and tow him home, where his narrow width allowed him to be parked in a garden shed or a single-car garage.

The days when a city was proud of its airport have faded away. American pilots are forced to drive longer distances to even find an airport. And when they do, the cost of renting a hangar or even space on the ramp, is often several hundred dollars per month. Add to that the premium charged for fuel and we find that a large number of pilots can simply no longer afford to fly. F.R.E.D. changes all that. F.R.E.D.'s wings are easily folded by one person. The horizontal stabilizer is removed and a trailer-hitch replaces the tail-wheel. The owner-pilot need only drop the trailer hitch onto the ball and he's outta there. On his way to the airport, the owner of F.R.E.D. may decide to stop by the gas station, where F.R.E.D.'s ten gallon tank may need topping up. Ten gallons of gas will give him at least two hours of flying with a safe reserve and the emphasis here should be on the flying, because the more you do, the better you are.

With just one seat F.R.E.D. isn't for everybody. Indeed, it is just for you. Take F.R.E.D. out a couple of times a month and you'll be a better pilot for it.

Information Overload

2009-03-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

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That's not a joke. Nor a line from a poorly written television show. It's the real thing. And the effect it has on me is rather interesting. You might might find it interesting too, which is why I'm writing this.

I'll assume you know about the cancer and, if not that it's mere mention will be enough for you to track these entries back and come up to speed. Or perhaps not. In either case the cancer is the baseline. The projects -- do-it-yourself airplanes and the engines to power them -- were here first, beating out the cancer by more than a decade. Other projects too, ones not suitable for chatting about over what is basically a party-line telephone. Did you ever have one of those?

Back in the Good Ol' Days, whenever that was, the phone company decided who got telephones and who did not. If you lived on the fringe you might get Party Line Service, which meant you shared your telephone with a number of other people. The way it worked was that you were given a coded ring. Two longs might be the Mason family who lived about a mile farther out of town. In theory, with a two-element code -- a long ring and a short ring -- and a maximum of say four elements you could end up with a lot of 'telephone neighbors' but in practice it didn't work out that well and most Party Lines had only a few subscribers. One reason it didn't work very well was because everyone listened in. The more people to pick up the receiver, the lower the signal strength until it reached the point where you couldn't hear anything.

It took some seriously deep thinking to come up with the Party Line system. And to make it work. A basic tenet of making it work was that the Telephone Company was Always Right. And if you didn't agree, they would simply disconnect your telephone.

When you are the only game in town you'd be surprised how many people found themself agreeing with the Phone Company and overlooking the fact that a whiff of competition would probably have turned things around a lot quicker than any system based on Ma Bell's superiority. In fact, you'd probably have a system pretty much like what we have today, with a cell phone in every pocket.

In a sense, my projects are something like the Party Line in that everyone can listen in. I'll leave you to figure out the other ways my projects are similar to a party line. And the ways it is dissimilar.

Right now the Cancer Project is taking up a steadily increasing share of my time. I'm a bit old to be sending myself back to medical school but when you see the stuff I've been researching and the truly enormous amounts of stuff I've been reading, it would be hard to say I am not a student of medicine. That doesn't mean I'm a good one -- my interest is too narrow -- but my interest should give you some idea of my dedication, as well as my ability to ask the right questions as I come up to speed on the subject. :-)

I'd better put in a smiley there. Because anyone with a lick of sense knows that a few months of reading does not a doctor make. But it can make a patient who is liable to scare the pants of a few physicians.

The point of all this is that medically, I'm coming up on a fairly critical time, one that will impact the amount of time I will have to keep playing with my projects. Wrong decision and it's time to pack my sea-bag.

Making decisions -- good ones -- takes quite a bit of time. I'll leave you to work out how that is impacting the projects that don't have to deal with cancer.

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Up-side stuff: I weighed about 230 pounds when I was diagnosed. (Yeah, I was pretty fat, most of it gained over the last ten years or so.)

Within a matter of weeks I was down to 200, still slowly drifting south. About a month ago -- nine months after I was diagnosed -- my weight was at 164. Which isn't all that bad because it had been at that level for a couple of weeks. Then it started coming back up. I'm now about 175 and the trend looks pretty good. Plus, there's a couple other Gross Indicators that are looking better than they did. You can't say I was on the mend -- there's no cure for multiple myeloma -- but there were signs I was holding my own, all thanks to my wife (seriously) and the team of physicians Dr. Alberto Bessudo had gotten to be part of my Cancer Team.

Down-side stuff: Working undetected, possibly for years, the tumor had honey-combed a couple of the vertebrae in my spine. It had done such a good job of it that one of my vertebrae was a mere shell with so little structural strength that something I did -- some entirely innocent behavior, probably something I've been doing all my life -- caused the muscles to literally crush the vertebrae. It's called a compression fracture and it isn't unusual with multiple myeloma but in my case it is. Because whatever it was I had done (probably picking up an engine) not only crushed the vertebrae, but crushed it so badly that the normal fix simply would not work -- there wasn't enough healthy bone remaining. ( On the MRI scan you can see the remnants of the vertebrae, a sharp-edged scickle of bone. )

I'm still mobile but.. you know that pain thingy I've mentioned a time or two? Well, crush a vertebrae and Pain pretty much takes over. But even that's not going to last much long if I don't get this thing fixed, and the fix is akin to jacking up the boat and putting a new hull under it... if you're familiar with ol' fashioned Navy-type humor. They need to virtually replace the vertebrae with prostetic made of titanium or perhaps carbon fiver. Then they need to plate it with something my body will accept as bone -- and grow to it, creating an inflexible -- but pain free -- Super Vertebrae.

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Care for some applesauce? No, you go right ahead; I've got tons of the stuff. Eating some now as a matter of fact, even though it's a quarter to midnight Getting the munchies is something the doctors take as a Good Sign. (Which should tell you that doctors haven't eaten a lot of applesauce :-)

The Chugger has had me trying to figure out a practical way to make a near-perfect leading edge out of fiberglas, three or four feet at a time using vacuum bagging. Which I can't say I've ever done to any extent but which I think I can figure out.

Basically, you start with a perfect mold of a leading edge. Not just good but perfect. Then you drape it with fiberglas, cover that with a sheet of plastic, suck out some of the air and let it cure. Perfect leading edge skin, easy as that. ( And I'm sure you can see the Great Big Smiley that goes with it. )

Now those of you who have done a bit of plastic-bagging are rolling around on the floor, pointing at the computer screen, laughing so hard it's coming out snort snort snort while your family is wedged in the doorway trying to figure out: a - What happened to the old man? b - Should we dial 911? and c - If I help him up, will he let me use the car?

Well, I did make a pretty good mold. You see, the mold has to be strong. Chord of the nose-skin is twenty-one inches, span is 48. That's over a thousand square inches. And I ain't no dummy... made it nice & strong... better than six layers of fiberglas on top of foam. Beautiful finish with provision for over-lapping ends, channels for peeler strips... all that neat stuff.

Turned on the vacuum pump and in the time between turn it on and looking back at the mold it had folded itself up like a fiberglas taco. (No, not a regular taco... they're way the hell & gone too crunchy.. one of them fish tacos, like Pilar sells down in Todo Santos. Or did, back when you could drive to Todo Santos.) And of course, you've used a resin that will set-up nice & quick (see how smart I am?)

That was a few years ago but I didn't give up. Made the next plug outta Portland Cement. (Don't laugh! Inexpensive and can take an impression accurate to thousandths of an inch. Howard Huges used tons of the stuff making the molds for the 'Spruce Goose.') Skreeded nice & neat (See? A regular genius) Made the finish-coat nice & thick. Slow-setting (Little house for it and all so's I could keep the plaster-coat moist. Lotta thinking went into that puppy.)

Weight? Oh, I donno... couple hunnert pounds I guess. ( Now you can see where the bad back comes from :-)

Okay, so I've managed to outwit myself a few times. Chalk them up as Learning Experiences. And then hide them suckers to keep your friends from laughing themselves silly.

But I haven't given up. Until I caught this cancer thingy.

I'm about down to the Sanding stage on Mold #3. No thinking required, so mebbe I can keep working on it now & then. Along with that propeller. And those two engines over there. (Usta be five.)

Progress. It's our most unexpected product.

-R.S.Hoover

TABLE SAW, Part 1

2009-03-25T07:56:00.000-07:00

About two years ago I was coming home from an errand in town and because of traffic, I took a different route. It climbed out of the part of town drained by one creek, up and over a ridge then down into another narrow little valley whose once chuckling creek now flowed out of sight in a concrete tunnel. It's a very pretty little valley, no more than a mile in length, but quiet and cold in the winter, the temperature often dropping below freezing, covering everything with frost.

The seldom traveled road is bordered with hedges which conceal some of the most expensive homes in Vista. Beyond the hedges are paddocks and groves, often several acres in extent. Their smudge pots once made a significant contribution to Vista's rural atmosphere until they were nudged aside by lavishly large homes, horses and people to ride them.

Incredibly, someone was having a garage sale. Portable tables and racks of clothing were arrayed facing the road; a road on which through-traffic was rare and when it did come, was liable to be a local resident like myself, driving an old VW bus. Or an expensive SUV.

I like to stop at garage sales, hoping to find books or tools. I parked and started browsing. A tall, thin woman, perhaps forty years old, left two other women and came tripping over the lawn to ask, "Can I help you find anything?"

She had been looking at the old bus and its equally decrepit driver, but discretely, her head slightly down. Her neck and jaw-line was straight off a bust of Nefertiti. She re-positioned a stack of china teacups and saucers. It looked like Norataki. The stuff was made up in stacks of four, tied with a thin ribbon of pale blue. There was a little white price-tag affixed to the ribbon: $100. There were four stacks, each of four cups and saucers. "It's a shame having to break them up," I said. She gave me a startled look as if surprised I could speak. Or perhaps she misinterpreted my meaning. She waved a hand down the table at other pieces of china.

"I think these were spares," she said in the voice of Paula Prentice. "They were always getting chipped... " She sounded uncertain, turned and walked away, leaving me unattended before a table bearing teacups and silver spoons, one of which was probably in her mouth when she was born.

She came back, now walking with her head up, an easy, graceful walk. Rather than simply raising her voice she'd walked over to the other women, posed the question, came striding back. "No, that's all gone," she said, like the rings from the fingers of her clasped hands. I took that to mean China and if these were the spares... I imagined tables groaning with expensive porcelain, cut crystal and a spare kitchen maid or two.

"Have you any books? Or tools?"

"Books..." I'd stumped her with the sudden leap from China to literature. But she was learning to Cope; a girl grown old in a character straight out of the pages of Fitzgerald. She gave me a wide smile, made another hike. And another return. "There may be something in the boxes..."

The hesitant boxes were under the tables, filled mostly with bound issues of Associations; of Legal this and Corporate that. And cookbooks? But in French.

Alone, under a table all its own, was the Saw amidst a litter of tools remarkable only for their shoddy quality. Some sort of 'Home Owners Kit' from a cut-rate drug store, worth at least $1.98 when new, now marked an improbable $5.00. And the saw. The incongruity of finding a Skil saw; an honest piece of goods, sitting atop a box of trash intrigued me. If there were other boxes snapped up by earlier buyers, how could they have overlooked the Skil saw. I pulled the box toward me but there was no price-tag although there was a swatch of masking tape in a conspicuous position on the handle, probably put there for the missing price.

"What'll you take for the saw?" I swung it up, into her view, threateningly near a pagoda of Norataki, showing her the piece of blank masking tape.

When I swung the saw into view, dangerously near the fragile China she started to extend her hand, an instinctive move to protect the China. Or perhaps the saw. But this had taken place before the cancer, back when I could pick up a ten-pound saw as easily as a piece of cake. Or perhaps she sensed my raw, masculine power... Whatever the cause her protective hand fllew out then withdrew, the movement serving to bring her knuckle to her chin where she tapped it in a speculative manner, sneaking a peek toward the two women, still involved in a negotiation of more importance than than a dirty saw. But this was a woman learning how to cope with such things, probably with some help from a Sunset magazine suppliment telling its Yuppie subscribers how to conduct such affairs, perhaps even a guide on Basic Dickering.

She said, "Make me an offer."

It was said with a bold confidence so unlike her demeanor just a moment before that I gave her a speculative stare that lasted a moment too long. She blushed and I felt ashamed for scaring the girl.

"How does ten dollars sound?" Alright, I'm a rat. The saw was worth at least twice that.

She was flustered now, started to speak, hesitated then admitted: "I'll have to ask," with an exasperated sigh and off she goes across the grass, a long, thin woman, square shoulders and that lovely stalk of a neck, leaving me to wonder. Death? Divorce? A Russian secret agent no longer receiving her stipend from Moscow? A yard sale in that neighborhood was liable to be covered by the Society reporters for the local papers.

A Decision had been reached. Money change hands. Hangers were removed, clothing folded, stuffed into a paper bag. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen a paper bag. Then the two women came toward me.

The second woman was Mutt to Fitzgerald's Jeff, legs pumping industriously to remain abreast of her taller companion. There was also a sense of diffidence, the shorter, younger woman whose hands were marked by years of work was clearly In Charge, a preppy from Smith walking an Afgan from Harvard Law.

"...the pockets. Because once it's gone, it's gone."

I agreed with a hearty nod as the saw was inspected, first casually then with obvious suspicion. "Wasn't there a tag?" the little woman asked.

"Just the tape," I smiled, peeling it off. Oops!

Concealed by the tape was a sticker saying the saw had been re-worked. Probably a warranty item. In fact, the plastic handle had been branded RECON.

The tall skinny lady didn't understand that the short woman, who was probably teaching her how to run a garage sale, had tried to conceal the fact the saw was reconditioned. I started to put the saw back into the box of junk but the skinny lady asked, "What's wrong?" I put the saw on the table, well away from the China, with the sticker and the branding facing the woman and explained the meaning of the sticker. The short woman interrupted me to tell the other she was going to the house. We watched her walk away.

"Does that mean you don''t want it?" the woman asked and for reasons I can't explain, I dug out my wallet and offered her a ten dollar bill. The woman looked toward the house then at the bill. It fluttered in the cooler air starting to flow down the road. She looked back at me and said, "You can have it, if you want it."

"That wouldn't be fair..." then I realized that it would, since the short woman would probably receive a percentage. A cash payment, neither taxed nor recorded. The woman was hugging herself. She didn't want the money. I thanked her, putting the money in my pocket. She smiled, blinking rapidly. I turned away rather than see her cry.

I used the saw to make a scarfing jig for plywood. It has worked flawlessly. Now I'm using it to make a table saw. I'll post the drawings and photos on the Chuggers_alt Group.

-R.S.Hoover

Ode to my Belly Band

2009-03-23T23:23:00.000-07:00

It clasps me. Not too tightly
In a grip of Velcro and lace. Politely
It provides a Nylon squeeze between my shoulders and my knees.
My once bowed back is now Marine Corps straight.

Morphine, my new-found friend, remains in my pocket much longer than before.
But it's there when needed, when strain is exceeded,
On that shelf just there by the door.

Months ago -- that now seem like years -- I thought a brace... some added support... might keep the pain at bay. Not a cure, you understand, but a crutch. Something to help me stay up-right long enough to do some minor chore at sink or stove since it was understood that anything more useful -- the scrubbing of a floor or simply carrying packages in from the car -- was something I could no longer do; something not to ask of me when I was too ashamed to ask for myself... and too damned scared to simply wade in, grab as many bags as I could hold... and sink into a whining, agonized heap so wracked with pain I soon became too terrified to even try. A demon now lived in my guts and would reside there until I die. My friend Morphine, a cheerful if somewhat drowsy fellow happened along, candy for the demon now eagerly fed.

But it nagged at me; the thought there may be some middle-ground as yet unexplored, a side-canyon of canvas, leather and skillful hands that might allow me to slip past the demon's cave without awaken him, if only for those face-saving minutes when the Terror of the South China Sea could flash a salty grin and shoulder my pitiful share of the familial load.

The one from Harbor Freight was made for a fatter American than me. The other they offered was too small. Instead of Kid Shelleen I was given a character from Dick Francis.

The doctors were polite at best, their expressions making you check the soles of your shoes. Clearly, back supports were right up there with apricot pits and movie stars, damned with praise so faint it was blown away on a whiff of resignation. Asking a physician about back supports was on par with asking to clean the windshield of their Porsche at some busy intersection of life.

On the other hand there are tasks for which a belly band is a requirement. Not as a cure for cancer of course but as a statutory requirement meant to stave off injuries rather than cure them. And the people selling such things take their role seriously enough to support web sites and offices. Just as the military surgeon is no longer required to shave the colonel, the belly band man has come of age.

It costs a ton, compared to the stuff from Harbor Freight. But fair is fair; I am the colonel and the belly band man still smells more of Bay Rum than isopropyl alcohol. He speaks knowledgeably Gold Bond versus Mennen and corn starch versus talc.

The first efforts were hilariously wrong; my pride was trying to do the belly band's chore and I was tiring even more quickly because of it. But there was a moment, just before Kid Shelleen surrenders and the Demon emerges from its cage... just for a moment there, when my own muscles, flayed with radiation and depleted with drugs gave up the struggle and let the belly band do its job, when I enjoyed peace of a kind. I still hurt. When the Demon decides it will live in your spinal column there's really nothing you can do. Pain-wise it's like the joke about nine-hundred pound gorillas deciding where to sleep. If you've got Multiple Myeloma, and if it involves your spine, then pain has become your life-long companion. And yes, that's a play on words.

Fortunately, the belly-band man knows those things, whereas if the physican does, he treats it as something of lesser importance. One of the best examples of this is the way the two manage your time. Sure, it's their time too, but when the physican makes you wait an extra hour for a harried seven minutes of discovering he's got the wrong chart and that treatment of my vagina will probably prove unsuccessful, he puts no importance on the matter. After all, he is a Physician, whereas you are... just a patient.

The belly-band man, equally harried, took a time-out to apologize; to ask if we'd like to re-schedule; the person he was with now had some serious issues and it was going to take more time to sort things out. We chose to wait

Mis-handled appointments lead to time compression. The only fair thing to do is to skip ahead and re-schedule, which we could hear the girl doing, trotting back and forth, calling other belly-band fixer-uppers until the brush fire was contained and the cause of all the trouble is finally escorted out the door walking with a gingerly gait I'd learned to recognize. But walking. And by sitting there we saw that missed appointments were the exception rather than the rule.

My belly band isn't quite right even now. But it's moving in that direction. If this were Hollywood we would probably see Kid Shelleen smiling happily, with forty acres and a mule.

-R.S.Hoover

Cutting Aluminum

2009-03-13T14:02:00.000-07:00

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Aluminum is marvelous stuff for building airplanes. It is as strong as mild steel -- and even stronger in some cases == yet weighs barely a third as much. The advantage of aluminum over other materials is best illustrated by a design such as the Teenie Two, which has an empty weight just over three hundred pounds. What's remarkable is that when you subtract the weight of the converted VW engine and the landing gear, you're left with barely a hundred pounds.

That hundred pounds represents the aluminum used to fabricate the airframe. And while that sum includes some extrusions, most of the hundred pounds is made up of sheet aluminum.... and of just two thicknesses, .020" and .040", making the Teenie Two one of the most practical and least expensive of any homebuillt. (So why isn't the sky filled with Teenie Two's? Because the plans... all seven pages of them... are as screwed up as Hogan's goat.) Great little airplane; horrible set of plans.

When you set out to make an aluminum airplane one of your first chores is to cut the aluminum. This holds true for every metal airplane. Indeed, a large percentage of the time needed to make such an airplane is taken up by cutting the aluminum.

There are lots of ways of cutting aluminum and as a novice tin-bender we're expected to know quite a few of them, from using a large pair of tin-snips to milling out stacks of ten ribs at a time using nothing more sophisticated than a router.

Oddly enough, one of the most common methods of cutting aluminim -- and a method used virtually every day by everyone from school kids to housewives -- is not to cut the aluminum but to fracture it.

Think I'm kidding? Pick up a cool one and pop the top. You've just cut the aluminum top of the can by fracturing it!

Working with sheet metal we often are tasked with making a cut that is perfectly straight, or at least within the spec allowed by most homebuilts (which happens to be one-eighth of an inch in thirty-two feet... or a sixteenth over sixteen feet.) Which is pretty damn straight. To achieve that degree of precision we simply clamp a straight-edge to the metal to be cut and transfer the 'truth' of the straight-edge to the work-piece by scoring the work-piece with a suitable scriber.

The most commonly used scriber is just that -- a machinist's scriber (think of a dart without vanes). That works fine for small jobs, such as scribing the air-foil of a propeller, but as the thickness of the material increases, we are forced to score (or scribe) the material more deeply. This causes us to reach for scoring tools designed specifically for that task. A nice example of this is the bottom tool in the upper photo. The tool has a silicon carbide cutting edge and is perfectly flat on the left-hand face. This makes the tool suitable for scoring metal up to .032".

The box-cutter (ie, the yellow tool) is probably the tool most commonly used for scoring aluminum sheet. Unfortunately, the blade is not flat-sided; you must learn to hold it at the correct angle. An X-acto Knife or #11 surgeon's scalpel is a better choice when scoring beer-can stock for templates and the like.

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About here someone usually sez: "I don't get it." I've been talking about scoring and scribing and telling you which tool is best for this & that... but I haven't mentioned how the metal is actually cut. Because it's not, of course. Cut, that is. Once the metal is scored we simply flex it back & forth. Not very much... not enough to bend anything. But to just flex the metal. That's all it takes for the metal to fatique... and then to fracture, right along the score-mark.

Long piece of floppy metal? Then clamp a stiffener to it; a piece of wood will do. In fact, flexing even a small piece of metal is sometimes easier if you clamp a piece of wood to it, to act something like a handle as you flex it up & down.

Brothers All

2009-03-02T19:16:00.000-08:00

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It's not just pills and radiation that cures cancer. A big part of it, perhaps even more important than xrays and medication, is the people in your corner.

-Bob Hoover

PS - That's Ben on the left, Micheal on the right. I'm the good-looking one in the middle.

How to Carve a Propeller -- Part 1

2009-03-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

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A search of the internet will turn up half a dozen How-To articles for making a propeller. What follows is a series of articles explaining how I make my props. My method isn't any better or worse than most of the others; you'll end up with about the same propeller. I'm offering my method because I've found it works a bit better when it comes to teaching folks how to build a prop. I'm not sure why that is so. Perhaps it gives you more confidence or something. In either case, take advantage of those other How-To articles; read them carefully. But keep your money in your jeans until you've given my method a fair trial.

This propeller is for the Chugger's engine. Chugger is a draggy, single-place, all-wood, strut-braced parasol. Chugger's engine is a big-bore stroker based on after-market VW components. The crankshaft is a Chinese import having a stroke of 84mm (stock is 69mm), fitted with 94mm pistons. The stock camshaft is retained but is retarded between -4 and -7 degrees, moving the engine's torque curve to a point well below 3000 rpm. (The stock VW engine had to be able to get a vehicle weighing more than 3,000 lbs under-way from a dead stop. Even with a box of gears that takes a fair amount of torque.)

A high-torque, low-rpm engine requires a prop with a lot of blade area and a diameter of up to 68". This particular propeller has a diameter of 62" with an aerodynamic pitch of 34". One blade of this prop is shown in the illustration above. (Double-click for a larger image.) The illustration is also in the File archive of the Chuggers-Alt Group where it is in DeltaCAD's native formate. If you have DeltaCAD -- they offer a 30-day trial copy for free -- you will be able to print-out the pattern shown above then glue it to a piece of plywood or poster-board.

In the illustration (above) you can see that the propeller blade has been divided into ten segments or Stations, each 3.1" wide. The propeller will use a Clark-Y airfoil, which happens to be flat on the bottom. After laying-out your glued-up blank, the first step in making the prop is to carve that lower surface. Protractors for each Station have been provided in the Files Archive. These are used to verify that the bottom surface of the prop has the proper angle.

In the lower part of the illustration to the RIGHT the WIDTH of the propeller at each Station has been measured. In the upper part of the illustration the geometric pitch for each station has been laid out by dividing the Aerodynamic Pitch in inches (ie, 34) by 6.28 (ie two pi ).

If you haven't obtained a copy of DeltaCAD, which would allow you to use the templates in the Files Archive, by using the dimensions from the two illustration you have enough information to manually lay-out & draw the blade pattern onto 1/4" ply or similar. Take your time finishing the pattern since it will be reproduced in the blades of the propeller. When you are satisfied with your workmanship, mark it in the hub area: 62x34 and give it a coat of varnish.

The horizontal lines in the upper part of the illustration represent the laminations (ie, 3/4"). For this first prop I want you to use full-length laminations. That is, four pieces of 1x6 birch, which is available from most Home Depot stores. (But if this is your first-ever attempt to carve a prop, use 1x6 pine shelving instead of hardwood. Don't worry; it won't go to waste.) In later props you will see that the upper-most three laminations do not need to be run full-length. By using shorter pieces for the upper-most three laminations you can reduce the cost of the wood by almost half. However, when you have a blank that uses partial-length laminations it can be very difficult to carve the lower surface. Here's why:

The lower surface is flat but twisted. You can see that from the different angle at each Station. Normally, we carve the lower surface by using a back-saw to make a reference cut at each Station. The reference cut starts out even with the trailing edge but comes out on the leading edge at some point above the trailing edge. That means the cut is at an angle to the horizontal. If you'll look at the upper part of the illustration above you will see a dotted red line that represents where the lower surface comes out on the upper surface edge of the prop blank. Study that for a minute and you will see that in full-span blank -- one in which all four of the laminations are a full 62" in length, to carve the lower surface we must remove about half of the wood in the prop-blank.

Removing wood isn't difficult; we cut down into the prop-blank with our back-saw not just at every station, but about every inch (!). Then we chunk it out with a mallet and chisel. When compared to a prop-blank that uses laminations of different lengths, this method adds to the work -- although that isn't much of a consideration since we aren't punching a clock... but it also adds to the cost, which can be a major consideration for the lo-buck builder. That's why I'll be showing you how to make-up a blank in which only one lamination is full-length. The other three laminations are only partial-length. I think this is worth mentioning now because a prop-blank that uses full-length laminations is so easy to work with that it may give you the wrong idea about making props. When using a prop-blank made up of partial-length laminations you're going to find that just holding the thing down can be a major problem.

Among the patterns and templates in the Propeller File in the archives of the Chuggers-Alt Group, I have included Airfoil Patterns, Lower Surface Protractors, and 'Chunking' Templates. By applying the templates to your prop-blank, most of the work will be taken care of when you chunk-out the blank.

Remember now, I'm uploading all this stuff to the Files Archive of the Chuggers_Alt Group. DeltaCAD will print them out full-scale. You then cut them out and spray-glue them to a suitable substrait. For the protractors you want something fairly substantial, like 3/4" stock. For the airfoil patterns you want something thin but rigid. Back in the Day we used shim brass, typically between .006" and .010" but nowadays beer-can stock is generally used.

The third illustration in the group above shows the lines needed to chunk-out the upper surface of the propeller blade. As with the lower surface, the upper camber is twisted. You want to keep that in mind as you do your chunking.

When you get done with chunking out the upper surface you'll be left with a lot of corners. That's when you reach for your block plane, draw-knife or an angle-head grinder an angle-head grinder fitted with an #80 grit sanding disk.

The tricky bit here is that any of the above tools leaves a stripe. That is, a flat spot. The more you work at it, the more stripes you'll have and the skinnier they'll be. Rub a piece of chalk on the cambered surface of your gauge, fit it to the matching Station an the chalk should transfer to the 'corners' of the strips. What you want to do is get your stripes down to a width of about 1/8". When you do that, trial-testing with the template leaves a kind of dotted line that makes it easy to see where some strips are a bit too wide, meaning they need a bit more work.

The final finishing involves little more than working your way down through three progressively finer grits of sandpaper, using an orbital-type block sander. For the leading edge, you want a perfectly faired surface. I've found the handiest way to get it is to simply fold some #120 paper in the palm of my hand and work it down until my eye tells me to stop.

The Stations nearest the hub DO NOT follow the rules which apply to the Stations from #3 through #10. These inner-most Stations do not contribute thrust nor cooling, since they are obscured by the spinner. In fact, about 50% of your thrust is produced by the blade of the prop beyond about Station 6. But the inner-most Stations are vital with regard to the structural strength of your prop.

Stations 1 and 2 are simply nice, fat streamlines, with as much camber on the lower surface as on the top. We can do a bit of chunking here but it's mostly an eye-ball job.

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3 March 2009

I haven't uploaded any of these drawings to the Chuggers_Alt Group. The truth is, I've still got about two dozen drawings to do and the airfoils are especially pesky. I also want to include some photos but I've got a pretty full plate. I'm going to go ahead and post this to my Blog but keep in mind that it isn't complete as yet.

-Bob Hoover

The Littlest Wing

2009-02-24T10:52:00.000-08:00

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It's the one on your engine; the propeller. A lot of us forget that it's a wing, or better yet, a whole kit of them, usually arranged in pairs. (Yes, there are single-bladed props. A tear-drop shaped counter-weight adorns the other side. But except for low Reynold's number events, such as model airplanes, the hoped-for improvement failed to materialize.)

Your propeller converts torque into thrust. It does this by accelerating a slug of air. Air has mass and while it's pretty thin stuff, if you can accelerate it to a significant velocity, that soft summer breeze can become a tornado or hurricane. Unfortunately, with a tractor-type engine installation a good percentage of your airplane is embedded in that tornado. And along about there you remember that Drag increases as the Square of velocity. That means you and your fuselage, with all its lumps and bumps and intersections is a major problem, especially when trying to generate thrust with a Volkswagen engine.

To stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution you need to do two things. The first is to find a prop that is the best possible match for your power-plant and airframe. The second is to do whatever you can to produce a wide thrust-slug rather than a narrow one.

Solving the first problem is pretty easy, if you got lottsa money. You just keep buying props and test-flying them until your improvement peaks-out and you start going down hill. That's when you glom onto the Last prop you tested and put it back on the nose of your bird.

But you may not be able to do very much about the second part of the problem. The only way to produce a wider thrust slug is to sling a longer propeller. But if your engine doesn't have enough thrust to spin the longer prop, you're stuck. But hang around; there's a couple of things you can do that can be of real benefit.

When selecting a prop most of us track down someone having the same airframe and power-plant and use whatever prop they happen to be using. Sometimes that even works out. But not always. His airframe could be seriously out of trim. Or it could have up to twice the parasitic drag as yours. And if it's a Volkswagen engine, most of them are victims of the Horsepower Myth, which is okay for dune-buggies but hilariously wrong when bolted to the nose of an airplane. Even so, there's no doubt his prop will fly your plane if it manages to fly his, but unless your engines are a good match there's the possibility you've just bought a pig in a poke. And a properly made propeller doesn't come cheap.

Gathering more information about other guy's props & engines is a step in the right direction but the chances are, they did exactly what you are doing, which means you could all be barking up the wrong tree. Don't believe it? Okay. It's your plane and you are the Mechanic in Charge, not only of your plane but of your life. So good luck in the Contest :-)

One thing you've got going for you is the fact that propellers are relatively easy to build, meaning you can roll your own for a fraction of the cost of buying one. And as soon as you finish the first one, you get started on the second, because for your research to be useful you should only change one thing at a time.

Didja get that? You carve yourself a 58x34, balance it to a gnat's ass and go fly. Your test flights follow a carefully worked out routine in which you quantify the propeller's performance in your particular machine by measuring such things as Take-off Run, Time to Climb to 1000 feet, average speed over a known distance and so-forth. While all that's going on you're spending your evenings carving another prop in which you change only ONE of the propeller's four basic characteristics; that is, diameter, pitch, Blade Area, and Blade Area Distribution. (Other factors are: Weight, Stiffness and Airfoil.) And while you're doing all that you may want to look up the recommended propeller for the Continental A-40. Rated at 37.5hp and having a displacement of only 1834cc (sound familiar?) the A-40 was typically between 60" and 68" with a pitch that varied between 37" and 43".

As to the things you can do to improve your engine's torque, one of them is to simply use a longer connecting rod. Here's why: Each time the piston reaches Top- or Bottom-Dead-Center, it reverses direction. Depending on the ratio of rod-length to crankshaft stroke, the piston may literally stop. The crankshaft is still rotating but for a number of degrees the piston is motionless. The longer the connecting rod, the longer the piston will dwell at TDC.

The Static Compression Ratio that you built-in to the engine during its assembly, occurs at TDC. Interestingly enough, Ignition has already been initiated -- in fact, the fuel-air charge was ignited quite some time before the piston reached TDC. This reflects the fact that the process of ignition requires a finite amount of time. Not that it's a slow-poke. Even in the largest Big-Bore Stroker combustion only takes a couple of milliseconds. What's interesting is that except for some minor variations having to do with ambient temperature and air density, the process of combustion is virtually independent of the engine's rpm. That means, the faster the engine is running, the earlier we need to light the fire. Even so, in the typical dune-buggy engine the Combustion Space is constantly increasing. Indeed, this is what you want when the engine is bolted to a box full of gears. But this is NOT what you want when the engine is bolted to a fan!

The greater the dwell at TDC, the more time there will be for the process of combustion to occur when the fuel-air charge is at it's maximum compression ratio. With the piston virtually motionless combustion will produce it's maximum temperature, which in turn yields the maximum possible pressure. And it is that pressure which appears in the crankshaft as TORQUE.

To achieve this minor miracle we retain the stock cam shaft and retard it by as much as seven degrees, although -4 is more typical. This causes our maximum torque to appear between 2500 and 2800 rpm, which makes it ideal for slinging a prop. Dune-buggy engines, typically running above 3000 rpm, produce a narrow, high-velocity thrust slug, which works okay in a cleaner airframe. But if you're driving a tumble-weed you're going to need a wide, low-velocity thrust slug. And the only way to get it is to move your engine's torque-band to a lower rpm.

That covers the engine. And should have made it clear that there is an enormous range of differences between supposedly 'identical' engines. Now let's look at the prop itself. I've included a couple of illustrations just to liven things up. The image at the start of this article is of a template used to test the Upper Camber of the prop's airfoil. But don't pay any attention to the dimensions; this template happens to be for a prop only 42 inches in diameter, meant to be used with a 6hp single-cylinder engine.

You don't start 'trying' the templates until you are almost finished fabricating the prop. But such trials are of critical importance to insure each blade of the prop is the closest possible match to the other.

Traditionally airfoil templates were made of brass shim stock, having a thickness of .006" to .010". Nowadays, lo-buck builders use the aluminum from a beer can. If building just a single propeller, you can even get by using paper, such as the cover of a file folder.

Since our prop is going to be operating well below the critical tip-speed of 880 feet per second we can use one of the traditional airfoils such as the Clark-Y, a very good choice for a wooden prop, thanks to its flat bottom and good thickness ratio, which is about 12%. (The Clark-Y, which was used on Lindbergh's 'NYP' and the USA-B, (US Army, version B) which was used on the Piper 'Cub', owe their existence to Col. Virginus E. Clark, one of America's first truly competent aerodynamicists. Colonel Clark (U.S. Army) was a real genius. His research in molded propellers lead to the invention of the 'Duramold' process for producing laminated wooden skins that had significant advantages over riveted metal structures. The Duramold process is what made the HK-1 possible. [HK-1 or 'Hughes-Kaiser #1' more commonly known as the 'Hercules' or 'The Spruce Goose,' even though most of the structure is Duramolded birch rather than spruce.])

The second illustration is of the coordinates for the Clark-Y, which I don't believe is included in Abbott's 'Theory of Wing Sections.'

When I can find the time I will include drawings of the airfoil templates we will need to fabricate propellers for the Chugger. The airfoils will be drawn full-scale (ie, 1:1) allowing them to be used as patterns. Printed by an accurate printer, the patterns will be glued to the metal templates then scored with a scalpel or razor-knife.

Interestingly enough, when working with sheet-metal thinner than about .025" you will find that scoring works better than cutting. The scored metal is simply flexed back & forth a few times, which causes it to fatigue along the scored line and fracture. The tricky bit is in how you make that first all-important score-mark and the secret is, for the thinner the metal, the lighter the amount of pressure. Indeed, for beer-can stock (or .006" brass shim-stock) you don''t us any pressure at all (!) While this would appear to violate common-sense, it turns out that if you use any pressure you will cause the shim-stock to deform long before any scoring takes place, and that the now-deformed shim-stock refuses to fracture along the scored mark.

-R.S.Hoover

Reuben Sandwich

2009-02-22T22:41:00.000-08:00

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Sunday's peaceful decline is marked by the horn of a distant train, clearly heard in the still air.

The sky is overcast, what warmth there was is gently trapped beneath the gray blanket, without sound or movement. A candle on the patio table burns undisturbed, it's flame as stable as a painting.

It is my stepson's birthday, he is now forty-something and rather surprised by how quickly this birthday has followed his last. We celebrate the event with Reuben sandwiches, Brownies and good cheer, the grand-kids rocketing around the house like elemental particles. A baryon zips past, narrowly missing a lepton as a meson comes through, hooting like the train. The meson has lost a tooth, proudly displays the gap, sign of approaching maturity and two-bits from the Tooth Fairy.

A Reuben sandwich is a bit of a mess, one of those things so messy that you know it has to taste good even if you've never tried one before. It starts with Rye bread, which gets lightly buttered on what will become the outside. Suitably greased, the slices of bread are spread apart and a dripping tablespoonful of my Secret Sauce gets slopped onto each slice, spread around by the spoon and allowed to soak in. The Secret Sauce begins as something tomatoey... tomato sauce will do but so will ketchup. I'm making six sandwiches so I'll need a bit more than a cup of sauce and begin by schlurping ketchup into a small bowl. Then comes Horseradish... the Good Stuff that stops your breath and brings tears to your eyes. Not too much but you need to establish Who is In Charge. The sauce gets a shot of mustard then a shot of mayonnaise, something of a surprise but a necessary evil. Dash of garlic powder and lots of stirring then two heaping tablespoonfuls of dill pickle relish. Schlop --- smear -- swipe. If you take more than a minute you've missed the whole point of a Do-It-Yourself Reuben.

Onion, in thin slices. This calls for a sharp knife. The slices fall away from the blade, already coming apart, which is okay, because you adorn the sauce with two or three slices broken down to their individual rings; a Torpedo Net of onion rings.

After the onion comes the sauerkraut which has been simmering on the stove. You can spice it up if you like. This one wasn't. The heat is important, part of the technique needed to produce a proper Reuben.

Swiss cheese, sliced stinking from a brick of holes comes next, followed by the meat. Today I'm using canned corned beef but you can use pastrami or various kinds of sausage, even dried beef, partially re-constituted by heating it amidst the sauerkraut. Bully beef is okay; it makes for less of a chore when accumulating the ingredients. Since bully beef is tapered by the can you need to plan ahead, topreventrunning out of room.

A cast iron skillet has been heating on the stove. Very low heat but fifteen or twenty minutes. A lid, also warm, is near at hand. The assembled sandwich is flipped into the hot skillet, causing the butter to sizzle, telling you if it's too hot or too cold.

The tricky bit here is to flip it into the skillet meat-side-down. Now pop on the lid and start assembling another. Why meat-side-down? Because you want the meat to be hot and the cheese to melt but you don't want to turn the onion into a soggy mess.

Cooking the Reuben cools the skillet so that when it's ready to be flipped, the onion-side goes down onto a relatively cool skillet. There is still a bit of a sizzle but now it's more like a hiss. The lid goes on. Nothing is getting cooked except the bread, which is being toasted, which is why you keep an ear out as you assemble the next customer. When the cool side of the sandwich is toasted you scoop it up with a spatula of suitable length and plock it onto a plate with crunchy dill pickle and a slab of potato salad if you've got it. If the sandwich is destined for a woman it gets sliced on the diagonal, which removes the threat of squeezing goo all over that pretty blouse. Guys being guys just wrap a large napkin around the thing and attack.

If there are vegens 'round the table, leave out the meat and use a French knife to give the onion rings a couple of chops. Cooked without meat, the onions will lose their crunch and become difficult to manage.

Reuben's have a habit of vanishing. People who are sure they can't finish one end up wandering around with an empty plate in hand and a wistful expression.

Use a LOW heat. Allow time to work in your favor.

If you're feeding kids as well as adults, mix two sauces, one having less horseradish. It's a big sandwich; serve them halves.

DON'T mix up things ahead of time. The sauce does not improve with age.

If using canned corned beef, it should be at room temperature.

Everyone's recipe for a Reuben sandwich is different, which is as it should be.

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I'm still trying to regain muscle mass. Reubens are one way of doing that but they're a lot of trouble to prepare -- you need a good excuse -- just having cancer isn't good enough. Turning Forty-Something justifies Reubens.

The joy of cooking is not in your ability to produce a tasty meal, it is in the expressions of the people eating what you have prepared. After eating a Reuben, they smile. Their plates are empty. It has been a memorable experience, for them as well as me.

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Cooking with cast iron is a bit different in that the skillet never goes into the dish washing machine. Cast iron pots and pans are washed by hand but it is more scraping than washing. Once all of the residue has been removed they are put over a low flame and fed a small amont of oil. We usta use lard but that meat having to wash the skillet before using it as well as after. Nowadays you'll probably use rape seed oil (ie, 'canola' oil). Let it get hot in the skillet, Dutch oven or what-have-you then wipe it dry and put it away. The next time you use it, give it a gentle pre-heat with a shot of oil and wipe it out. In many ways a cast iron skillet is similar to a cast iron griddle.

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A good Sunday. I hope there will be plenty more.

-Bob

Cancer Report 05 -- Email Woes

2009-02-21T22:09:00.000-08:00

I'm still alive. But Google has 86'd my email account, kicking messages back to the sender, causing many of them to think dire thots. So try this one:

veeduber@chuggers.net

My isp is a company NAMED 'ISP.' Cute name but a bad company. They made some kind of a deal with Gmail (eh?) which passes all of my messages to Google... who decides to shut down my account. Why? I've no idea. And I suspect Google doesn't either. But with the account shut down, any message sent to veeduber@isp.com would be rejected, causing the sender to think I'd died. Or something.

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It is 104' around our patio. And 294' from the kitchen door, down the front drive then up to where I park the bus, around the bus and down the back drive to the patio gate. Then thru the gate and back to the kitchen door. Two hundred and ninety-four feet.

Good exercise. Something to do, what with no emails to fill my morning.

The pain is almost entirely gone. That worries me a bit, wondering if something is about to break loose. Take the 'long' walk; try not to think about it.

5280 feet equals one mile. 1320 feet equals a quarter of a mile. Four-point-four times around the long walk is a quarter of a mile. I'm now strong enough to walk a quarter of a mile without falling on my face.

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An Amateur Radio License is only good for ten years, after which you're expected to renew the thing. Mine expired on the 13th of February so I went to the FCC's web site, found out what I had to do to renew my license, and did it. Today a shiny new license arrived from the FCC. It's just a computer-printed page but one suitable for framing. There is also a smaller version you can cut out and tuck in your wallet although I'm not too sure why. I've never had anyone ask to see my ham radio license. Nor my pilot's license.

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It has been nine months since Alberto Bessudo told me I had cancer. I'm not in the hospital and all things considered, I'm not feeling too bad.

-Robert S. Hoover
-21 February 2009

ENGINE MOUNT

2009-02-06T20:55:00.000-08:00

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Engine Mount
(All photos courtesy of Mike Sample)

When you install the propeller on the clutch-end of the crankshaft it solves a lot of problems, such as having the nose of the crankshaft break off, taking your propeller with it. But like the man said, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Put the prop on the clutch-end of the crankshaft and you have effectively reversed its direction of rotation. That is, if you are sitting in the cockpit of your VW powered Dream Machine and you've mounted the prop on the fan-pulley hub, the propeller is rotating anti-clockwise. But if you have installed your propeller on the clutch-end of the crankshaft, to someone sitting in the cockpit the prop will be rotating in a clockwise direction. Kinda like it shows in the picture at the top of this article.

Another part of your No Free Lunch is having to carve a propeller for that direction of rotation. (Not to worry. I'll post a big, fat article showing you how to carve such a beasty.) This article will give you some idea of what you will need as an engine mount. The tubing is 3/4" x .049" The method of engine mounting also includes some means of shock absorbtion or vibration damping. In this case, the shock mounts are pre-molded rubber mounts usually sold as 'Lord' mounts. I'll include a drawing showing how to make them, as well as another type which uses simple rubber pucks. (The rubber pucks in Lord mounts are tapered on one end.)

As you can see in the photos, the engine mount is triangulated, taking advantage of the threaded busses found on all 1971 and later VW crankcases.

As you can see, a bed-type mount is used on the FRONT/LOWER mounting bolts.

(When dealing with Volkswagens everything is always called out relative to the vehicle. The forward-most crankshaft bearing -- the one nearest the flywheel -- is the #1 bearing and so forth. This is the convention used in more than twenty million Volkswagen engines over the past seventy-five years and I think you'll have to admit it would be rather silly to try and change things now :-)

You may also use individual mounts at this point, the crankcase providing more than enough strength. But the bed-type mount -- something to which you can weld a mounting tab -- offers a number of advantages when installing your oil cooler, carb-heat box and so forth.

Up to this point the mount is the Plain Vanilla version. The following photos show the mount modified to accommodate various cooling and exhaust systems.

Notice that the struts from the upper attachment points has been 'cranked' so as to allow more space under the cylinder barrels. This is to allow the cooling shroud to wrap around the cylinders and heads.

In this arrangement the dynamo is mounted directly to the crankshaft, eliminating the need for brackets, pulleys, vee-belts an so on. The goal here is to provide an engine installation designed for non-mechanics.

If a starter is required, it is installed on the top of the crankcase. It's ring-gear attaches to the crankshaft between the engine and the propeller hub. This will probably require a blister on most cowlings.

On some airframes the location of the gascolator will have to be changed to allow an unobstructed path for the LOWER/REAR threaded bosses. These were introduced by Volkswagen in 1969 to provide a hard-point for installation of a rear engine mount in the Transporter.

The LOWER/REAR mounting bosses are not symmetrical relative to the parting line of the crankcase, something you want to keep in mind when cutting your tubing.

As on all of the later-model engines, the threaded bosses are fitted with Heli-coil type thread inserts. The engine mount is attached to the crankcase with high-strength metric fasteners having drilled heads to accept safety wire.

The last two photos show the engine mount installed on an airframe (ie, look for the yellow paint). From this point on the installation becomes airframe-specific.

-R.S.Hoover

Club Med

2009-02-03T12:11:00.000-08:00

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Nope; no pictures. It isn't that kind of 'med.' This kind does chelation therapy for people without kidneys, and feeds cancer medicine to people like me.

I started going to Club Med in July, 2008, when I came home from the hospital. I was the newbie of course. Room full of geezers looking at me without looking, if you know what I mean. Geezers are good at it. Kids aren't. Little kid, say, six or less, will run right up to you, ask if you have cancer then tell you their mother's life story. How you handle it has a lot to do with how the Club members handle you.

People don't die at Club Med. They do that at home, or in the hospital. But before they do, they stop coming to Club Med. That's the part you notice. A different face plugged into Machine #3. Oddly enough, you never ask. You already know. And if you were close, you might reach for your cell phone. Or ask one of the nurses, to find out if you've still got time to send flowers. Or whatever.

Whatever else it is, Club Med is a business. It's there to make someone a profit and you have to remember that the profit comes first. No profit, no Club; it is not a charity. But right now -- and for the foreseeable future, business is good. Perhaps a little too good, from an humanitarian point of view. And while you may not know it, there's a Club Med near you! No, they don't want anything from you (well... mebbe not. I don't have a lot of experience with Club Med's. But most don't want anything from you... mebbe kid's toys at Christmas but they probably don't have to ask for stuff like that).

There's only two ways out of Club Med. You gain weight, grow hair, start to smile more often, pay more attention to how you dress. Then you vanish.

Or... you start turning kinda gray. Not your hair, your skin; all of you. You lose weight. Your smile becomes more hesitant, often fails all together, as if to say 'What the hell are you looking at! Don't you realize I'm dying here?) Well... yes, we do. And believe it or not, we'll miss you. But it's a path we all are one day going to travel, the only difference is that Club Med is a kind of short-cut.

Ol' Ironsides comes in both flavors, getting better and getting worse. They are typically 12V-Powered-Loners who arrive in their battery-powered wheel chair, don't need any help, thanks. And really don't. If they are male you can imagine them pumping iron down at the beach, soaking up some rays, playing catch with the kids. I see them out at the shooting range, raising hell with a hand-gun, which is usually somewhere on their person 7/24 because some folks think Ol' Ironsiders are an easy touch. They're not. Going armed doesn't mean they're looking for trouble. In fact, it usually means exactly the opposite.

But most Club Med members come in pairs, the patient plus... someone. 'Care Giver,' whateverthehell that means. My wife comes with me. Going by myself will mean I'm getting better. Stay tuned!

I did Club Med today to pick-up a Zometa refill.(*) I'm exercising more which means I'm hurting more and Zometa seems to help. Another newbie over in Chleation Row and for the life of me, I can't remember who was there just a week ago. Someone notices me looking and fills me in. Others join the conversation, people closer to him. Sudden. Some sort of stroke. I sense a feeling of relief. About the best some have to hope for is to die in their sleep.

Club Med.. It's not for the weak of heart.

-R.S.Hoover

(*) -- Part of my medication regimen is a periodic Zometa I.V.

THINKING SMALL

2009-02-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

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Need a drop of oil?

Sure you do. Everybody does, now & then.

Pocket-knife. Part of my Uniform, issued to me by the Navy in June of 1956. Good knife. The steel holds an edge. The blades pivot on either end. Keep the big blade 'knife-sharp,' the little blade 'razor-sharp.' (It has to do with the cross-sectional shape of the blade. Razor-sharp is a temporary thing; it dulls in a hurry; needs to be stropped back to sharpness. Knife-sharp isn't as sharp as a razor but it keeps it's edge longer. When it gets dull you sharpen it with a whetstone. Just a few strokes.

Oil a micrometer?!! Well... yeah, I guess so. After all, it's just a 40tpi thread inside a graduated barrel. But it doesn't need to be oiled very often; mebbe once every five years if you use it a lot.

Fan with Oilite bearings? Sure! Sez so, right there... little hole 'OIL.' And you are the Mechanic in Charge.

When it comes to lube-jobs we have a tendency to ignore the little jobs, like all those kitchen appliances you and your wife depend upon. But if you read the manuals you'll generally find some mention of lubrication, although many will want you to take it to a 'qualified repairman.' Which is you, by the way. Indeed, the main difference between a modern 'Lubricated for Life' partis that they make no provision for periodic lubrication. Most of today's cars are like that, with many key components being 'lubricated for life. But it turns out that their definition of 'life' can be as little as sixty-thousand miles, at which point you will be forced to buy & install a new part.

Kitchen drawers & cabinets? Yep. Tiny drop of oil every five years or so. Along with your home's door hinges, door knobs, latches, locks and so forth. But not always oil. Some call for a whiff of powdered graphite, like the door lock on your car or truck.

Sewing machine requires periodic maintenance, just like your car, boat or plane. And they'll usually tell you what oil to use.

Funny thing about oil: Provide something with a hole that sez 'OIL' and the odds are, it will get too much oil. The oil gets past the seals; gets into the motor which slings it all around. The oil collects fine-textured debris which eventually blocks the vents needed to allow the motor to cool properly. So they seal-up the oil holes, leaving you to go around, put your hand on the motor or gear-case to estimate the temperature. If you can put your hand on it, it doesn't need any oil. But if you can't touch it with your bare hand, then there's a good chance it needs to have it's lubrication replaced.'

Good motors, the sort of thing you find on ammo hoists and other military equipment, have very specific instructions with regard to lubrication. They spell out when the thing is to be dismantled and cleaned, what lubricants should be used and how much.

The point most often overlooked with regard to such lubrication chores is that the item to be lubricated must also be cleaned occasionally.

Another point often overlooked by the home mechanic is that selling light-grade oil in small quantities often inflates the price to over two hundred dollars per quart. No, that isn't a typo. See the half-ounce tube of Singer Sewing Machine oil? It's list price is $3.19.

This sort of thing reflects modern-day corporate thinking, in which every possible effort is made to screw the customer. Proof of this is seen in the first photo which includes a 4 ounce can of Singer Sewing Machine oil for thirty cents ( ie, $9.60 per quart ).

Your best defense against this sort of thing is to buy such lubricants in larger quantities, such as quarts or gallons and to provide your own dispenser... or to simply refill the regular dispenser, such as the cans shown in the top photo. WD-40 and kerosene are available in one and five gallon containers and a flit-gun provides all the atomizing I require. The same is true for light-weight oils which are usually available from distributors of hydraulic lifts and elevators.

The best example of this that I can think of is that I can think of involves my Zippo cigarette lighter, variously repaired (at no cost) by the Zippo company three times since 1958. Lighter fluid is naptha. Purchased by the gallon, is ( or rather, was, the last time I bought some ) about $3 per gallon while lighter fluid cost about $0.75 for a 4.5 oz can. That's about $21.00 per gallon. ( And the price has since gone outta sight ).

-R.S.Hoover

Cancer Report 04 -- Exercising -- Walking

2009-01-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

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"You might want to increase your exercising," the physician said. It was the last thing he said as he left the examining room, a parting shot aimed neatly across my bow. Before I could locate a blunt object with which to belabor him about the head, the door was swinging closed and the glow of adulation was slowly oozing away. "He's sooo nice," she oozed, about the same time I discovered the ophthalmoscope in the top drawer the door was closed, my fate decided as my wife's magic fingers did their curly-whoopty-full-stop-Do, which in short-hand would be translated onto our account of the Visit to The Doctor's Office, every neuance of which was recorded not only by Mr. Gregg's Secret Writing but recorded on a chip the size of my thumbnail, which was good for a year or more of Visits. (Why the double-down & dirty? Because I can't spell Dexamethasone any better than Lisinoprille but my wife could, although I secretly suspect she looks them up in the PDR (Physician's Desk Reference... buy one; it'll change your world).

So there I am, doomed to an increase in my exercising. So... how much? How often? What type? And on and on and in inestimablity that would succumb to the guns of my wife's attack upon the physician's hapless assistant.

Which it does. I am doomed to twenty-five laps around the patio, into which I am wearing a discernible trail. I'm serious! My poor cancer afflicted body is literally wearing a groove into our patio!

...and something terribly wrong with the blogging software.... again. Not only will it NOT turn itself on at certain times, at others it fails to turn itself OFF, leaving you to write in Italics for the remainder of your days.

Ah, well...

See the priddy pitcher at the top of the page? Note the figure '104' on the counter? (Just tap the picture. It will fill the screen and you'll be able to read the numbers.) That is the DISTANCE of one trip around the patio. One hundred and four feet. Thirty-one point two six three Meters. Five trips per day equals 156.313 meters. That's more than a kilometer per week! (1.094 Km). In a month I will have traveled 7.658 kilometers.

That's 520 feet per day. I can already feel my knees starting to crumble. Five hundred and twenty feet per day is 3,640' per week... 2.75 MILES in a month!

Like the man said, it's the side-effects that gets you.

-R.S. Hoover
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I am now spending so much time in my patio that I've decided to give each of its districts a unique name. For example, the concrete portion between the sliding glass doors to the living room and the REAL door into the kitchen has been named Metropolis. It is this section of my patio from which I occasionally see a man removing his clothing in a telephone booth. The man then LEAVES his clothing IN the telephone booth, steps out of the booth, LEAPS INTO THE AIR and vanishes. But that isn't the part which is truly fantastic (and why I know it can't be real.) You see, his pile of clothing, including his wallet and a pair of heavy, horn-rimmed spectacles, REMAINS in the phone booth and is NEVER PILFERED!!!

Having a fellow leap into the air wearing some kind of costume, did not alarm me. After all, this is Southern California. Mexico is little more than a border away. Masked and caped crusaders are a common sight in Mexico. Indeed, they have become virtually a national tradition. Having a few of them leak across the border should come as no surprise, just as having them vanish into the sky brings only a shrug. (Here, I'll put one in ) There. Now you know how to do it when you come to write your next Radio Play. Of course, no one will bother to read them. So send them to more radio stations. Get someone to play the role of your Announcer and record them yourself! Now you can offer them to the SAME radio stations which rejected them. And to Colleges, hospitals, banks and so forth. Just keep in mind that dashing adventure heros in skin-tight costumes are my particular genre!

Stay tuned as our intrepid (but Cancer-prone) Explorer leaves civilization behind as he plunges into the seamy bowels of the City.
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SPEED-TRAP

There is one section of our patio that, quite frankly has me buffaloed. After making a sharp turn around a pile of flag stones, my path -- when traveling west-ward -- takes a sudden downward dip, resulting in an abrupt and completely uncontrollable, increase in my speed. So there I am, plodding along, thinking more about getting there than in how fast I can, when I hit the downgrade and come into a maze of plants, some planted for medicinal reasons such as the bed of aloe vera when this little dork on a hot-rod bike pops out of the bushes, hits the buzzer and goes into the: "May I see your license and registration... please" with everything but an out-right giggle on the please. Busted. Doing 45 in a 35. And in my own backyard, fer crysakes!

So I pass over the documents and he writes me out the ticket and in a month 0r so I'll turn up in court but he won't. And they'll ask for a continuation and I'll say it works both ways, your honor, and if it's one of the non-political judges he/she'll say No way, Jose, slam the hammer down and dismiss the charges, telling me to cool it, even if it is my own backyard, what with the grand-kids and so on, and I'll say, Yessir/Ma'am/Whatever, an' I go back home just knowing that sucker is going to be waiting for me again and all because the Doctor said I might want to get a bit more exercise... MIGHT WANT, as in me having something to do with it, instead of a Fiat from On High that sez I gotta start pumping iron an' hittin' the bricks as if I was going to fall apart next Thursday at three o'clock.

Wanna see some PROOF? Huh? You wanna? Well, THERE'S your proof! Lookit that sucker all tucked up outta sight behind that boulder in all them bushes there, just WAITING for me to come down that grade, brakes a'smoking an' me digging in with both canes an' ain't no WAY I can slow that sucker down before I hit the flats there by the patio gate!

-R.S.Hoover
-Monday 26 Jan 2009

PS -- Doctors! Sheez!
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2 February 2009

I'm walking. It is 0750. My back hurts a little. Not much, just a little bit but it's in a place where bad things have happened. So I decide to not walk as far as I'd planned.

Coffee is good. Steaming slowly in the bright sunlight, bent to the south by a gentle north breeze. Sure enough, when I flex my back the Bad Place starts sending off rockets. It's Science Fiction Time, boys & girls. Bob Heinlein has come to play hockey on my back; down low, where the radiation was focused. I'm all flat down there, the muscles have turned to string. It is difficult to sit down and when I finally make it, I wish I hadn't because it hurts so much I want to stand up again. NEED to stand up again. But that will hurt too. I stand up. Life's little messages.

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Thirteen times around the Patio Course. A quarter of a mile. Now I have other hurts to mask the back pain.

My baby sister has visited. She lives five hundred miles away. It was an expensive visit.

Baby sister. Big smiley there because she is now in her fifties. But she will always be my baby sister.

When I was a Seaman in the Navy -- a lowly E3 earning an amount so small you'd laugh -- I used to buy her little gifts, send them to her, imagining her delight. I was far away. The gifts were a link, or so I hoped. Years later I learned she had not received most of them. Even so, the memories are strong.

On this visit she returns the favor, giving me a Hot-Rod Walker. Brand name: Hugo. Model: Elite. It has brakes that lock the wheels and a padded seat, allowing me to sit down when my legs start doing that jerky-twitchy thing. There are zippered compartments and perhaps a Secret Decoder Ring. And I didn't even have to send in any box tops.

My legs are sore. They will be sorer before the day is done. And my arms, too. Pumping Iron. Joke, because the weights weigh only 5 pounds. FIVE MEASLY POUNDS! I used to press over 300 pounds, run a quick five laps, all that at lunch time; just a quick little work-out to keep myself in shape. And did. Until along comes a Tumor.

Multiple Myeloma. I'd like to exchange messages with other MM patients. Toward that end I've conducted numerous searches of the Internet. Lots of MM information out there, as well as lots of MM Organizations passing out information with one hand whilst asking for money with the other. But no MM patients. Lots of 'care-givers' but so far, nothing from the 'care-receivers.'

Hello? Is anyone there?
veeduber@isp.com
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MODIFIED CYLINDER HEAD

2009-01-23T13:32:00.000-08:00

The image to your left will give you some idea of the direction I'm now taking in my effort to find a more thermally efficient cylinder head.

What I have done is to move the existing exhaust: ports from their traditional location on the sides of the engine to a location beneath the engine.

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I've posted a bit more information on the rah GROUP but if you have questions they should probably be posted here.

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Picture of my smelter is posted to the right.

If you've not done any casting it is a handy skill, well worth your time to investigate.

-Bob Hoover

Flock of Eagles

2009-01-22T18:31:00.000-08:00

Steve Bennett, Great Plains Aircraft Parts Company, and Robert S. Hoover, at Vista, California on Sunday, 18 January 2009, proving once again that the more you fly, the handsomer you become.
-R.S.Hoover

GOOD NEWS ! ( Cancer )

2009-01-21T20:57:00.000-08:00

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Big Day at the doctor shop. No sign of Anemia at all. Should be some. Nada. Cancer is still there but... Lookit those numbers! Proteins used to track the Beast are there but... Lookit those numbers!!

Doctor is shaking my hand, looking at me, strong, right in my face. He is happy. He often isn't. Today he is. He's showing me the Numbers.

They've got computers all over the doc-shops nowadays. Paper too but not a lot. FAX, voice-mail your-computer-talking-to-my-computer sorta thing. Today he's got some paper and he's really happy about what's on it. 'No anemia at all,' and that's got him more excited than I've ever seen him. (Anemia is an excess of white blood cells. With Multiple Myeloma, the kinda cancer I've got, the physician likes to keep track of the white cells, which are usually elevated. If the count is not elevated, it's good news.) And I'm looking good, according to this physician, who I haven't seen in about a month, although I've seen a couple of his running-mates, including one who comes in just then. "Isn't he looking good?" and it stops him for an eye-blink. "Hey! You are really looking good," sez the second doctor, who I've seen just recently. The first doctor passes him the score-card from the blood-lab with a cheery: "Lookit this!" and he does the same song & dance routine. "Wow!" Now they're both shaking my hand. I mean, taking turns, but you get the idea.

My wife plays the beamish bride through all this, since my looking good is mostly her fault. She is the Commander-in-Chief of the pill bottle; she causes things to ring or blink or buzz, telling me it is time to... do something. If I need a pill, it is there, without failure or recourse. She is the one who makes the runs to the pharmacy. Her hand may rock the cradle but it also lights the lamp, leads the way and provides the accountancy that is the secret core of modern-day medicine.

Before you start ringing the bells, the cancer is still there; it's still generating the protein tags which tells the physicians it is not only there but what it is doing... getting better, getting worse, staying the same and so on.

Mine's getting better. And appears to be shrinking. And because of it, I'm looking good! (Okay, okay... but everyone else is saying it.)

Then we get into the Real Work, the four of us, adjusting the medication regime with regard not only to what I'm taking but how much. Most of this is aimed directly at the cancerous cells but there are other drugs needed to overcome my body's reaction to the anti-cancer drugs, a lot of which are toxic in the normal sense. But when you start looking good it means they can adjust the brew, leaving out Eye of Newt this week, mebbe jacking up Toe of Frog. How's my edima? Has the swelling gone down? The pain... dizziness... It's the pre-flight check-list for a 767 and they are its crew, ticking off the items one by one, stopping now and then for additional information; When did that start? How much? How long? Any of this? How are you sleeping? My weight (starting to come up), my exercises (still at it). But man, you are really looking good!

Bottom Line: I've turned a corner of some kind. There is no cure for Multiple Myeloma but they have managed to reduce it's impact on my system and the best proof of that is me, because... you guessed it: I am looking good!

Okay, so it sounds a little silly. Maybe it was. But it was a good kind of silliness. It isn't remission but neither is it the deadly stall-turn that I've been flying for the past six months. We've got it out of the spin. We are back in control.

A few small changes in the medication. New dates for future appointments, now safe to schedule them months in advance rather than days.

For the family and me the fight is still on a daily basis. There are no miracles but we are seeing real progress, the product of constant attention to a host of details.

When we are back home, the chores done, mail collected, there's a moment for reflection. Our team is working out. And I'm looking good! :-)

-R.S.Hoover

Casting Call!

2009-01-19T16:05:00.000-08:00

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Hello to all, including those of you who have mentioned my blog is difficult for them to read due to the small size of the print. Of course, in their next breath they admit there's nothing I can do about it because it is just as difficult for them to read everyone else's blog as well, meaning the problem is in the font and if I used a larger font, my articles would probably become too large to manage... or something.

But I appreciate the problem and while going to a LARGER FONT, as I have done here, is not much of a solution, it should serve to show you that I really do read all that mail... and that I really do try to do something about it.

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This article happens to be about casting parts. That's right; melting some metal (Aluminum in this case) and using the pot of molten Aluminum to CAST some NEW parts (cylinder heads, in this case). Which I can probably do. But I am such a klutz when it comes to this BLOG, you will be lucky if you can read the thing at ALL, regardless of the size of the print.

So here come some DRAWINGS that have been converted to ILLUSTRATIONS, which means they are virtually useless for doing anything more than giving you a very rough idea of what's involved.

Later on, as I progress through the process, you MAY get some idea of HOW it is done but right now the best I can do is to offer you some illustrations.

The first illustration is a collection of lines and circles that represent (to ME ) the head of a Volkswagen engine. This particular head was introduced about 1965 and the KEY DIMENSIONS of this head have remained the same right up to the last head Volkswagen produced... ANYWHERE and for any size of engine. That should offer you a hint with regard to the problems faced by the engine-builder when trying to produce more POWER from a VW engine.

The fact is, the HEADS are the critical factor with ANY air-cooled engine, in that so long as the heads remain unchanged with regard to certain critical dimensions, the maximum OUTPUT of an engine fitted with those heads will ALSO remain unchanged.

So what are those critical dimensions? They are the dimensions of the FINS. It is the FINS, especially those in close conjunction with the EXHAUST VALVE which dictate the maximum amount of HEAT that can be coupled to the ATMOSPHERE. It is this coupling or transfer that determines how HOT the heads can get. If you have too LITTLE fin AREA, the cast aluminum will literally start to crumble. Yes, CRUMBLE rather than MELT. That's because aluminum is what's know as a 'white-short' metal (as are most other non-ferrous metals ). With ferrous metals, such as iron or steel, as the metal gets hot, glowing red and then yellow and finally an incandescent WHITE... it still retains a good bit of its strength.

But Aluminum doesn't do that. When it enters it's 'plastic' range -- where the farrier would commence to shape the bar into a horseshoe by pounding upon the thing with a hammer -- if it is subjected to any amount of stress... such as HAMMERING, 'white-short' metals will literally CRUMBLE like a cube of sugar. This is what limits our maximum Cylinder Head Temperature to relatively low values... about 450 degrees F. for a casting and about 550 for a forging.

So where does this heat come from? It is a product of COMBUSTION. If you want the engine to produce any POWER it's going to have to produce one hell of a lot of HEAT. In fact, for every horsepower's-worth of TORQUE you'll see at the crankshaft, you will also see about THREE HORSEPOWER'S-WORTH of WASTE HEAT in the exhaust, and in the jugs, and in the oil and so on and on and on until you go a little crazy trying to deal with the waste heat.

The most elegant way to deal with WASTE-HEAT is to simply pass it on to the ATMOSPHERE -- to let your forward velocity force the AIR through the FINS on our heads and simply blow the heat away!

Which is what I'm trying to do here.

But it turns out to be a difficult task. There is a finite limit to your fins. Pump too much heat into them and they will crack or bend or do any of a dozen other things. Those are the problems I must overcome. So wish me luck, if you've got any to spare.

-R.S.Hoover

How Big is a Millimeter

2009-01-17T14:55:00.000-08:00

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Not very.

There are 25.4mm to 1 inch. And when you're dealing with your heads you're interested in the VOLUME of those millimeters which means you're dealing with CENTImeters. So here's one way to get a feel for them. See the tape measure? See the markings? Notice that this particular tape measure give you both inches and millimeters. Very handy!

If you'll click on the image it will fill your screen, flop off the edge of the desk and run all over the floor. Honest! But the larger image will give you a chance to evaluate the size of a CENTIMETER, which what you'll be working with when you cc your heads.
__R. S. Hoover

VW Engine Talk -- Which is the best year for conversion?

2009-01-14T15:08:00.000-08:00

None of them.

The alloy used in the VW crankcase has proven to be susceptible to age-hardening and the cracks which follow. It took about thirty years (!) for that fact to become evident but tests went back and confirmed that the crankcase, which is a magnesium-aluminum alloy, became more brittle with age. So in 1971 Volkswagen changed the alloy, increasing the ratio of aluminum. Which helped. But after 36 years that's the best they can say; the age-hardening is not as bad as it was with the earlier alloy. The 'new' alloy, which is at least 35 years old as I write this, still shows a propensity to become more brittle with age. As for cracking, the jury is still out.

Which isn't a problem with a professionally built engine. Because you always start with a new crankcase, which are still available from Mexico and Brazil.

The best part of the joke is that a new crankcase usually turns out to cost less in the long run than trying to re-work an old crankcase.

Why? Well, there's a lot of reasons, some people put more emphasis on one than another, which can get you into a race to see who can type the fastest :-) But most of the problems stem from the design of the VW engine, in that it only has three main bearings. There's a fourth
bearing on the crankshaft but it was only added to off-set the asymmetrical load of the dynamo & blower and should be addressed more as an accessory item than an engine item. Engine bearings are the three which support the crankshaft and have two connecting rods between each of them. The thrust bearing is located on the flanges of the #1 main bearing, immediately adjacent to the flywheel. The #2 main bearing is in the center of the crankcase and unlike most flat fours, it has the same bearing area as the other two. (Corvair or Subaru provide good examples of how flat engines are usually designed.) The #3 main is adjacent to the last pair of con-rods. Then comes the cam gear and a scroll-gear for driving the distributor, then another bearing, this one only 40mm in diameter where all of the others are 55mm.

One of the reasons a new crankcase usually costs less is because the youngest used crankcase is so old. Old crankcase, the center-main has been pounded out by the asymmetrical load of the 'boxer' design. That asymmetry appears in the bearing shells for the center-main as well as
in the web supporting the shells. Bottom line is that a used engine with 20 or more years of service is going to require an align-bore.

Align-boring is a basic chore in automotive machining and VW provides a range of over/under sized bearings, plus the thrust flanges. One rainy afternoon I worked out how many bearing-sizes they offered: 127, although not from Volkswagen. They put the limit for over-size main bearings at half a millimeter -0.50mm for the OD of the inserts. They did the same with their crankshafts, putting the limit for under-sizes at half a mil, meaning you could have a center-main that spec'd plus 50 for the OD and minus 50 for the ID, plus you could have two ranges for your thrust flange. And since you have STD-STD as your starting size you're already up to a dozen sizes and you haven't even seen what some of the after-market bearing-makers will sell you: Oversizes as large a one and a half millimeter!! And ditto for under-sizes on
your crankshafts!

No reputable builder will use that sort of stuff of course. But the kid will have no trouble finding someone who will. Of course, you gotta ask yourself if that Someone is a competent automotive machinist? Because in most cases the answer is 'no.' It's a shade-tree mechanic with some kind with a portable cutter-bar who will argue that his dune-buggies run just as good as all those other dune-buggies... mebbe even better, with his chin sticking out to about... here. So... howz they do in an airplane? you ask. And the answer(s) can keep you smiling for a while.

So let's leave the align-boring aside for a minute. In fact, lets assume your engine doesn't even an need align-bore. (Miracles have happened, you know.. :-)

So now what you need is to open up the spigot-bores for the cast iron cylinder barrels. You got four jugs so you'll need to open up four new holes. Ideally, you'll do it on a milling machine using a cutter that's been 'proofed' on earlier work to show that it cuts a true circle with square sides, meaning the sides of the hole are perpendicular to the deck of the crankcase... which may need to be re-cut due to 30 years of shuffling by the cast iron jugs. Such shuffling is normal, by the way. It's an artifact of the thermal coefficient of cast iron as compared to non-ferrous metals such as the aluminum in the heads and the magnesium in the crankcase. Every time you start the engine it under-goes a 'heat-cycle.' It is those heat cycles that cause the relative motion between the barrels and the crankcase. And between the heads and the barrels. And of course, after enough of those heat-cycles the tension in the head-stays (most kids call them 'studs') tends to relax, which is why Volkswagen tells you to re-set the torque of the head-stays periodically. And which
damn few VW owners ever do.

But there you are, wanting to over-bore the spigot-holes for a new set of jugs. First thing you want to do is to be sure the fellow doing the machining takes the trouble to measure your set of jugs, rather than the last set that came through the shop. Or the set that came through two months ago. Or whatever. Because when you shop by price for over-size jugs, you'll generally end up with a piece-rate product, imported from a country where the size of a machinist's pay-check is determined by how many sets of barrels he was able to crank out this week.

Now, checking on the machinist in this way is a bit of a trick because you should have already blueprinted your new set of jugs. What you want is a hole that's 0.005" over. No more and no less. At least, not for 92mm Kolbenschmidt barrels. Why? Well, in the first case... getting the spigot bores too big means your 'shuffle-rate' is going to go right through the roof: Your jugs are going to be doing the fandango when what you want them to do is a slow waltz. In fact, about the only thing worse that a spigot-bore that's too large is one that is too small, because that one is going to start grabbing at your piston in a process called 'scuffing.' That is, the aluminum piston inside of your cast-iron barrel is going to expand faster than the barrel... we already know that because of the difference in their coefficient of expansion. (Remember, the spigot bore is also going to be expanding.) If you didn't provide enough allowance, it's going to limit the barrel's 'growth' relative to the piston inside of it and that's going to cause the piston to rub against the wall of the cylinder. And you don't want that to happen.

So what if you've got something other than Kolbenschmidt jugs? Well, you gotta find out their recommended spigot bore allowance and use that, since they know their product best; they know the spec for their cast-iron But since there's only about nine different makers of
after-market VW jugs -- and the odds are you'll only run into two or three of them, you should be able to work it out. That means, pulling 'Machinery's Handbook' off the shelf and looking up the range of thermal coefficients for finned, cast iron barrels and coming up with a figure. Typically it will tell you use so many thousandths of an inch per inch of bore. So you run the numbers, round it up, do a few tests and there you are. For that particular jug. (In fact, your machinist should be the one doing all this. And if he knows his onions he'll already have the right figures for whatever brand of jugs you have. The thing you really want to watch for is the fellow who thinks One Size Fits All. Because it don't. Except for dune-buggies :-) (Hint: Ask to see his copy of 'Machinery's Handbook.' Most shade-tree types have never even heard of it.)

So there you are, all set to cut your new spigot bores. And while one half of the crankcase will lay flush to the table of the milling machine, the other case-half is home to a number of studs and will not lay flat. So the experienced VW machinist will have made up an Accessory Table to hold that side of the crankcase the required distance above the real table of the milling machine. The accessory table will of course be true to the milling machine, meaning it will be true to the crankcase, which means the holes will at least be perpendicular to the deck of the crankcase. As for bore diameter, we've already addressed that. But like Machinery's Handbook, most shade-tree types not only don't have a milling machine, if they do, they don't have the required accessory table for working on VW crankcases.

Now comes an interesting test of competence. After cutting you four new holes for your four new barrels the machinist will pull all or some of the plugs sealing the oil galleries in the crankcase. This is because some of those galleries have dead-ends or 90 degree 'corners' that become swarf-traps. If you don't get all of the swarf out of the castings, they'll end up in your bearings and cost you an engine. Or your life. So part of the expense is pulling those plugs so you can
get in there with your bore-brushes and what-not and clean the crankcase. The machinist's work is limited to pulling the plugs, threading the holes to accept socket-head pipe plugs, and providing you with a suitable set of plugs to match the holes. The cleaning is left up to the Customer. And if any of this comes as a surprise, you need to look at some other engines, such as those from Continental. Or General Motors. Look for the pipe plugs. Because they are a
standard feature on a properly built engine.

If your machinist is experienced with flying Volkswagen he (or she) will have drilled and threaded a couple of other holes in your crankcase. Some are to be used to lock certain components in position, others are used to improve the lubrication system and so on. Every machinist varies a bit in this regard; you'll have to work out which holes and plugs you expect to be done and those which you do not.

Now, having read the above, you've got to ask yourself exactly where you planned to realize any savings by starting with a used crankcase?

-R.S.Hoover

My Printer is in the Living Room

2009-01-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

My wife has a computer upstairs, in her studio. It is a desk-top type that's a bit out of date, or so I'm told. This based on the fact it still uses kerosene instead of electricity. But it's a very reliable computer, equipped with all mod cons; it's printer is also a scanner and if you're not careful, it will take a picture of you and send it to a list of her friends. Were it not at the end of a long flight of ascending stairs her computer would surely get more work than it does.

I have a large computer in my room as well. Plus some ham radio equipment. It fills a corner of the room, immediately adjacent to a ten-foot long Grounding Rod and a coax lead to a lengthy antenna. There is a laser-type printer attached to my computer which prints out pages at a remarkable rate, or prints out masks for printed circuit boards. Next to it is a printer that spits in color, as for photos or graphs, or pie-charts or any number of other neat things, such as transparencies and envelopes and .pdf files in which illustrations are embedded within the text, as well as an HP flat-bed plotter that can read old books or whatever and, when fed to the proper software, will print you out a reasonably error-free copy of whatever was written 'Way Back Then. Drawings, too. Which is why I even have the plotter, which I've had for some time.

The computer and ham radio equipment pretty much dominates the place. In the summer it is the only room given a whiff of air conditioning, since the electronics tend to heat things up.

After being diagnosed with cancer we soon realized that a computer would be helpful. In fact, it has turned out to be a virtual necessity, keeping track of drugs, prescriptions dosages and so forth on one hand, and lab reports on the other. Since physicians don't know how to write, we've found it wise to run their prescriptions though the scanner and keep a record of that, along with a translation (provided by their office) of what the squiggles mean.

Most of what the computer does is manipulate files of data. The files are kept on rigid disks, of which I believe there are now eight attached to the machine all the time. It also keeps data files on memory chips; jobbies about three-quarters of an inch square that the computer 'sees' via USB ports, using about a dozen of them. our main-board or 'mother-board' operates at some incredible rate of speed, a necessity dictated by the more than tera-byte of memory; some oriented this way, others that way, with an occasional cat to JUMP onto the middle of the mess and send it toppling to the floor.

But the computer that is used the most often is my elderly HP laptop, which replaced a Toshiba laptob, which never should have been offered for sale, in my humble opinion. The Toshiba is little more than an accident waiting to happen. Which it does quite often. Then I have to find out what's wrong, find out where I can buy the replacement parts, then take it to pieces, replace the damaged part (or software), put it back together again and hope it works. Right now, it doesn't. But the HP does, despite having to replace the keyboard at frequent intervals; it is a very trashy machine.

For a time, the sole purpose of the lap-tops was to carry information back & forth between the other computers (there are several more out in the shop). But I recently installed a wireless network, liking all of the computers together. This has saved a remarkable amount of time, not to mention Hikes up the Golden Stairway (because that's what it costs to maintain). Now, with every computer linked on a UHF circuit, moving data from one system to another is dead simple. Of course, there's still those damn stairs... Or at least, there was. Last week I got onto Amazon and asked them to send me a wireless printer. Copier. Photo-maker. There is a picture of it at the start of this article.

I use the lap-top in the patio. And the green-house. And the kitchen. And out in this end of the shop. That's as far as the wireless signal will reach. If I need to INPUT something from the printer it has to be in the format of a memory chip, because that's what the lap-top thinks the printer is. A memory chip. You plug the memory chip into a slot on the front of the printer. Usually, the chip is from a digital camera. When you plug the chip into the printer you can then examine the pictures. If that sounds a bit wacky, it's not, because often times you want to see a BIG picture of something. Usually, you look at the big picture and decide if you need another shot or if this one is good enough. This becomes critically important when you have a broken back. Or cancer. Or both. And you're trying to explain to someone how to cc their heads, which is another of those 'unimportant' tasks, so-deemed by the Instant Experts that litter the landscape near any VW-powered airplane.

-R.S.Hoover

It's the Little Things

2009-01-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

I once watched a fellow assemble a VW engine. It took him twenty-two minutes. Then he did another. Took him about the same. Then he started on a third and shoved it across the metal-surfaced work-bench in exactly twenty minutes. He was sweating pretty good. It was a hot day in Los Angeles and he was working in a metal-roofed building, along with three other assemblers. A woman was doing the parts-pulling: making up a tray with exactly one engine's-worth of parts. She was keeping all three of them supplied. there were a couple of other guys there, tearing down junk engines, checking the parts for condition. Not by spec but by eye

The engines got a new set of jugs and a new set of bearings. Everything else was taken from the trays of parts kept filled by tearing down the junked engines. The baskets of junked parts went into the washer and a couple of guys on the other side of the shop were doing heads, which is why I was there. I needed some cheap heads. But after watching them split the valve guide boss by driving in new guides with a chatter gun, I wandered back out the door and drove home.

I don't know exactly how long it takes me to assemble an engine. Probably not very long. But then I usually take it apart again. I generally put an engine together five or six times before I'm satisfied. Of course, before arriving at the point where I can do any assembling at all, I've had to ensure the parts mate properly; that the bearings are a good match to the rods. Doing heads, I can spend all day to produce a set of heads that tells me they're ready to run.

Then too, I assemble my engines using only hand tools. The Mexicans working in the shop where all using pneumatic tools. Just installing the heads, I can spend an hour flipping the engine from one side to the other, rotating the crank with my hand each time I increased the torque, taking maybe five steps to arrive at the final value. I've got a hunch I'm no longer strong enough to turn the crankshaft by hand; I'll probably have to use a wrench.

The reason for flipping the engine from side to side -- working on first one bank then the other, is to equalize the stresses in the crankcase. Or at least, that's what I was told by the German mechanic who showed me how to do it. The engine is in a fixture, hanging off the edge of the bench. It's easy to flip it back & forth.

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Up at the top of the page you'll see a picture of some valves. They're both new; never been run. The one on the right displays a small lip on the underside of the angle. The valve on the left has had the lip removed. The reason for removing the lip is because the lip can reduce the flow through the valve by as much as half.

No one ever believes that. You have to set-up a head on the flow-bench, get things air-tight and pull some numbers for that chamber. Then you do it all over again using a stock head fitted with new, stock valves, and repeat the same 'input numbers' -- that is, showing the air density & temperature hasn't changed and the 3hp electric motor is turning the same rpm. Then you watch the 'juice-tube,' and record the numbers.

If you want to see what's going on you'll have to substitute a clear glass tube for the black sewer pipe which forms the mythical 'cylinder wall' because the blower is actually a sucker, located outside of the shop. By sucking air down through a four-inch diameter hole in the top of the work bench, you can determine a 'measure of merit' for heads and manifolds and stuff like that. I've never bothered to quantify the numbers. I'm not interested in x - cubic feet vs y - cubic feet, I only want to know what's happening when I make a change. Is it better or worse? Most times it's worse :-) ...because VW had some pretty sharp engineers.

But sometimes things are better, especially when you're fiddling with valves, opening up the combustion chamber, and things like that.

Getting rid of the lip is better. Surprisingly so. In fact, it's so much better that you do it four or five times, using both inlet and exhuast valves. That is, large valves as well as small ones. And you grab a full-trick head that you know flows like Niagra and pop its valves and insert the ones you've smoothed.

With the Pyrex barrel in place of the black sewer pipe, and a metal mirror proped up, and a flashlight and a smoke wand, you get to SEE what's happening, which is pretty neat.

Ever shoot rapids? You can tell where there's rocks and ledges under the water because the water will sort of stand-up where it flows over the rock. That little-bitty lip is doing the same sort of thing. It's causing the smoke from you wand to stand up. And when it does, it causes the air above it to stand up and so on. In effect, that little-bitty lip is reducing the EFFECTIVE size of the opening by about half!

Change the rate of flow and the numbers change, so that you only see the maximum effect when you're trying to get get the maximum flow; that is, with the blower running full blast.

Then comes the fiddling around. And about the first thing you discover is that someone has already discovered this, because you can buy specially contoured valves that don't have the lip. The late Bill Fisher, in his excellent book on how to hotrod VW engines has a nice drawing of a valve showing the lip has been removed.

But now I know why they do it.

I grind off the lip. Chuck the valve into the lathe using a copper bushing, then feed a fine grind stone into it, back & forth, changing the angle after ever few passes, about five or six passes at each angle is all it takes. Then I polish them up with a hard wheel. Most of the gain will appear in the intake valves but I do it to the exhaust valves as well. Another of those 'unimportant' details that so many 'experts' insist aren't needed.

Open up the combustion chamber to accept a bigger cylinder, you should move the wall of the combustion chamber back away from the edge of the valve. You do that, your bigger chamber will fill faster and more uniformly. Anything that disrupts the in-flow of the fuel-air mix contributes to stratification of the charge because of the enourmous difference between the mass of air when compare to the mass of vaporized fuel. When you ignite the compressed mixture you want that mixture to be as homogenious as possible so it will burn at the same rate. And you want those conditions to be as perfectly matched across all four jugs as you can make it, because the homogenious mix results in a homogenious burn which results in homogenious pressure in each of your cylinders.

All unimportant, of course :-) Too much trouble or something. Schlock shops cranking out three engines per hour, making LOTS of money selling those junk engines to youngsters.

When we start using MONEY as our measure of merit, we've lost the fight.

-R.S.Hoover

Arnold, Clint: Meet Your Match!

2009-01-10T12:27:00.000-08:00

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I don't like showing up kids like the Gov or Make My Day Eastwood, who's actually a couple of years older than me (which probably explains why he's in such terrible shape), which is why I seldom discuss my superb physical condition -- and how it got that way. As for me, as you can see, I tipped the scales a 167 pounds this morning and decided it was time to double the number of reps in my daily series of Physical Jerks. Given the warmth of the day (Januaries in California are known for their harsh weather. The thermometer plummeted to a chilly sixty-eight degrees in the patio) I was forced to remove some of my garments to stave off heat prostration.

I was just getting into my routine
when our phone began to ring. We ignored it, since calls of any importance are placed by personal cell phones but after a time even those began to ring!

It seems that performing my usual round of physical fitness activities was causing the ladies of the neighborhood who could see into our patio, to ignore their duties in favor of bird-watching. Husbands and other members of the ladies families were calling to ask... No, to plead with me in many cases, to please take my physical fitness exercises in-doors. Barring that, to beg me to at least don a garment of some sort that would hide the sight of my powerful physique.

Apparently housekeeping and other chores had come to a halt in the homes having a view of our patio.

I felt really terrible about this and suggested that, it being a Saturday, the husbands give their wives some money and allow them to go shopping, something most women are quite willing to do.

For those who are interested, the exercise in the photos is done using cast-iron dumbells weighing a solid FIVE POUNDS (!) each. They are slowly lifted to above my head then returned to below the level of my waist. This is done FIVE TIMES, followed by a short period of REST.

I have performed this particular exercise as often as 25 times(!) without stopping even once.

-R.S.Hoover
10 January 2009

HEAD DRAWINGS

2009-01-09T10:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, here ya' go, as promised: Basic VW cylinder head. The one to the left is your basic three-view. Keep in mind, you are looking at ILLUSTRATIONS rather than DRAWINGS. If these were DRAWINGS they would be in DeltaCAD's native format, file code .dc This is worth mentioning because as a DRAWING the heads are reasonably accurate, diminsion-wise, allowing you to move things around.

The last of the three will give you some idea of the 'Fat Fin' modification. The green line shows were extensions were welded to the existing fins.

As a point of interest, take a look at the DATES on the drawings. That's when the DRAWING was made. The 'Fat Fin' mod goes all the way back to the mid-1970's.

-R.S.Hoover

Cancer Report 03

2009-01-07T21:09:00.000-08:00

Hi, guys.

The picture on the right is a bit of a joke. It was taken today, the 7th of January 2009, in approximately the same location and pose as a similar photograph taken in September, 2008.

In the 2008 photo I weighed about 185 lbs, having dropped nearly fifty pounds (!!) from my weight before I was diagnosed with cancer. That is, I was diagnosed in June, 2008, meaning I lost about 10 pounds per month. Then things sort of settled down and I think my weight stayed about the same, although it has continued to drop but at a much slower rate.

The last visit to the physician I weighed 171 and he thought I'd dropped enough weight, telling me it was time to add a few pounds, which I've been trying to do. Just prior to taking the photo I weighed myself on a balance-type scale (ie, that is, an accurate scale) and my weight was 174. that's when I got the idea of posing in the same place as I did for the September photo, the result of which you can see above. And just for kicks, I went back into the blog and pasted the above photo onto the end of the report in which I posted the original. ( ie, 'Cancer Report 02' dtd 28 September 2008 )

I've got a major medical conference coming up in a few days and I've got a hunch it will contain a bit of good news, in that the tumor appears to be backing down; the chemotherapy is working. I know I'm feeling a bit better although I don't have much appetite. I'm doing some exercises, trying to improve my physical condition so I can spend more time in the shop.

There's no 'cure' for Multiple Myeloma -- in the long run it always wins -- but if the drugs can keep it from spreading... and if I can endure the drugs... there's a good chance that I will be able to slowly resume my usual activities, although at a slower pace than before. Then too, cancer is a very tricky little bastard when it comes to adaptation. Given enough time, the tumor will get used to the drugs, develop a resistance to them, and begin to grow anew. How long that takes is anyone's guess but it's virtually a sure-thing that it WILL happen -- that's what this brand of cancer is known for. When that happens they will begin experimenting with a mix of new drugs and increasing the dosages of the old ones. The ability of the cancer to develop a tolerance to ANY drug is a given; what they need to find out is how well I can tolerate the new drugs & higher dosages.

All in all, it isn't a very happy picture but it's a step up from a funeral notice.

What I'm hoping for is a bit more TIME. I need time to finish the projects I've started, and to get several partially assembled engines out of the shop.

-Bob Hoover

NOTE: 8 JANUARY 2009:
One of my physicians called this afternoon. He had just received the computerized output of my blood tests from Monday, the 6th. The results were more than he had hoped for and he was giving me a sneak preview. -- rsh

1P = 1000W

2009-01-04T08:51:00.000-08:00

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Chill wind kicking out of the north. Low clouds scudding along. Sun is up but the temperature is only 46F. It's past 0800 on a Sunday morning and a friend has stopped by in Emergency-Mode to borrow a battery charger and a hundred-foot extension cord, both of which I've got to spare and so does he, except his is fifty one-way miles away and mine's not.

Have to dig for it, through. Extension cord is buried under a ton of crap in the breeze-way that's been accumulating ever since this cancer business has shot me down.

One of the things that has to be moved is a jig for making ribs, which my friend recognizes because he's made one too. Except his is prettier. And made on real lumber whereas mine is made on a piece of Particle Board -- which is another term for a kind of super-thick paper. Which means it's heavy as hell and warps like a bitch, unless you do something about it. And there it is, stored outside, not exactly in a mud puddle but damn near and my friend has picked it up to move it and is standing there, flipping it back & forth like he's never seen a rib jig before and the wind is finding all the holes in my pants. And my friend is STILL flipping the thing back & forth...

"So... WHAT?" I finally yell at him and he starts to hand me the rib jig and I'm backing away because the thing weighs enough to break my arm-bones, thanks to them being chewed upon by Madam Myeloma and the Cancer Quartet.

"This is Particle Board!" he says, giving me one of those... looks as if it's supposed to be something else.

"So? Didn't I tell you to use Particle Board?" I'm pretty sure I did. Particle Board is inexpensive and I use it -- and a lot of MDF -- for form-blocks... for shaping aluminum. And for jigs, like the one shown in the pictures here, and for lotsa other stuff. In fact, I got some MDF standing right there, just waiting to be used for something as soon as I think up what.

Then he turns the jig over and glares at me. I mean a real Death & Taxes, Women & Children First kinda glare, as if I'm just slipped on my wife's nighty so I could sneak into the lifeboat. "You didn't tell me about that," and he glares at me some more.

The that is a couple of pieces of 1x2 I've glued & air-nailed to the piece of particle board to keep it from warping, which is what it does. So does MDF. So you don't let it.

"You never mentioned... that," he says, sounding hurt, turning his head and looking away.

I'm about to laugh when I realize he's serious! "Gee, I'm sorry..." but I can see the pain runs deep.

We finally clear the junk off the 100 foot extension cord and he's on his way back out to the airport, a couple hours saved but a friendship slightly damaged (...and even more so when he reads this :-)

The rib jig is where it's at because I can scrape off the little blocks that make it a rib-jig, sand it down with some #80 and I've got my piece of particle-board back again, to use for a different rib-jig... or to cut up for something else. Building on the Cheap often means salvaging and re-using materials once they are no longer needed for a specific task.

Building on the Cheap also means pressing inappropriate materials into service now & then, such as making a rib-jig on a piece of MDF... or particle board. Normally, you wouldn't do that because both of those materials like to warp, with MDF being the leader of the pack. But to get a piece of wood that won't warp you're going to need 3/4" plywood... or 1-1/2" plywood... (!!) which is actually two pieces of 1 x 12 shelving glue TOGETHER center-to-center, meaning the trunks of their repective TREES are glued together. And if that didn't come across, take a couple of planks of 1 by 12 pine shelving and look at their end-grain.

Knowing how to prevent warpage is part of the package when you're building on the cheap.

-R.S.Hoover

What Every Woman Wants (No, Seriously!)

2009-01-01T22:50:00.000-08:00

I've got what every woman wants.

It's due to the Dexamethasone of course. ('Dexy' to the trade.) Dexy is one of those horrifically potent steroids that flat EATS cancerous tumors. Along with everything else, alas. Which is why I've managed to shed a few pounds, going from a chubbily pleasant 254 to a cadaverous 171.

I've no way of knowing how much of that 83 pounds consisted of tumorous tissue. And there at the start, following LAST New Years, I promised myself it was time to shed a few pounds and did, which got me into the 230-ish range, at which point I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and began the more serious business of chemotherapy, which whisked away the pounds, along with patches of hair (it's coming in CURLY, of all things!) and tumorous tissue.

But I now possess what every woman wants: To hear a physician say: 'It's time for you to put ON a few pounds.' And I thought of all the women I've known without being able to recall a single one of them who was not wishing just the opposite: to LOSE a few pounds, often with EXACTLY the same life and death fervor I've felt with regard to the cancerous tissue which has done such a swell job of digesting my spine that it actually BROKE... from nothing more than a sneeze or some other incidental stress. A compression fracture, so damaging that it would be unwise for me to attempt to lift the amount of weight I've now lost.

Put that all together -- the fervent ladies wish to lose as I have lost, then to fracture what I have broken, and you must admit there IS a certain element of humor... that struck me as the physician delivered the good news, and I began to laugh. And still haven't stopped. Not completely. But it certainly scared the hell out of the doctor.

"Time for you to put ON a few pounds, Chief."

"Aye-aye, sir!"

And I began to laugh. Because it struck me that, whatever else this cancer has done, it has given me what every woman longs for, as if it were a topic of polite conversation, suitable for those awkward moments when strangers are forced to spend a whisp of time together and a polite smile simply isn't enough, as in the elevator between 1 and 12, or the check-out line at the local supermarket. First, the friendly smile, then the casual: "I've got what you want," perhaps with another smile, depending on the lady's physique. Then back to listening to the elevator music or casually examining the contents of her shopping cart, my eye peeled for ice cream and Danish.

It gives you a nice boost, knowing you have what they want. Makes you want to flex your stick-like arms or show your turkey's neck to best advantage. Yup. Things are definitely looking up. Which is why I'm still laughing now & then.

-Bob Hoover

The Wire Tracker

2009-01-01T13:30:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to you all.

One of the more troublesome aspects of aviation electrical work is the fact our wires are usually NOT color-coded. That means you can have a bundle of twenty wires and before you can do any useful work you will need to figure out which one of the twenty at the equipment rack is the frayed one you've spotted behind the instrument panel.

How to do it? The good ol' fashioned way, which I described in an article some time ago, is to use a continuity tester. That is, a hunka wire long enough to run from here to there, a couple of flashlight batteries, and a flashlight bulb. You know you've found the correct lead when the bulb lights up. I even described a do-it- yourself tester based on an old-style Navy flashlight.

Alas, while 3 volts ain't all that much, you could be connecting those 'unimportant' three volts to a meter-circuit that blows it's top at two volts.

Whatcha REALLY want is a cable tracker.t

A cable tracker is a little oscillator that puts a warbling TONE on the wire under test, which you can then hear by waving a matching receiver at the other end of the wire.

Harbor Freight's gottem. Item #94181 about $20 US, probably less if you can find a Sale. (But Santa brought me this one :-)

-R.S.Hoover

Rib File

2008-12-26T17:03:00.001-08:00

It's for Measuring! Honest!

2008-12-14T12:29:00.000-08:00

As I said, you'll find a packet of cigarette papers in the tool box of most machinists.

(The blue-green Crayolas are used when flatting one surface against another. There's also some Crayola-brand CHALK in there for the same purpose. The Crayola items were purchased from American Science & Surplus Co.)

Propeller 01 The Blank & Other Preparations

2008-12-04T15:46:00.000-08:00

A good propeller begins with a good blank. The one shown here is not especially good. It lacks sufficient squeeze-out at the glue line. But it's good enough to serve as a training aid.

The blank shown here is made of pine weighing about 32 pounds per cubic foot. Which is pretty heavy for pine. The blank is a full six feet long, four inches more than required. Reducing the blank to sixty-eight inches will of course reduce its weight, as will carving the blank to the usual propeller shape. As shown the blank weighs twenty-two and a half pounds.

I've taken the trouble to mention the weight -- and the fact it will weigh less as the work progresses -- because I can't lift it, thanks to the cancer (mentioned in earlier posts). And since I can't lift it you may see me doing some rather silly things with the blank. That doesn't mean you should do the same :-)

----------------------------------------------------------

The blank began as four pieces of shelving. To make-up the required three-inch thickness I had to stack the four pieces atop one another. Since this blank is specifically for training you may elect to use a different number of laminations, so long as you adhere to the basic rule: More laminations is better than fewer laminations.

In the same vein, I've used pine. You may elect to use a different specie of wood such as hemlock, cedar or what-have-you. But I think it would be wise to stick with softwoods, at least for this particular prop. 'Real' props are often carved from hardwoods but as you are about to see, a good deal of what you must learn has nothing to do with the type of wood you are using; in theory you could learn with a styrofoam blank.

I've used Weldwood 'Plastic Resin' glue on this practice blank and intend to use it on the real blank as well. 'Real' propellers generally use Resorcinol but it has become difficult to find. Some prop-makers are using epoxy and I've even heard of urethane being used, but the choice of adhesive is really up to you, since all commonly-available adhesives are stronger than the wood you'll be using.

In any case, given the amount of adhesive you'll be using, it's cost is insignificant compared to the cost of the airplane as a whole. Which is one of the reasons you want a good squeeze-out. A good, sloppy squeeze-out is the best insurance against a glue-starved lamination. If you'll examine the photos you will see that I did not get a good squeeze-out with this blank, which is why it would normally be rejected.