Photo of the drawing from the plans showing the
angles which each of the
W-1204D closeout skin tabs are required to
be bent.
To help eliminate confusion going back and forth
between the drawing and the part being bent, each tab was marked with the desired
bend angle for that tab. The fabricated bending tool was then used to carefully place the tool onto the tab and letting the tab bottom out in the slot cut into the tool and lifting tool to bend the tab followed by an angle check using a digital level.
Using the wooden bending “tool” to bend one of
the tabs on the W-1204D bottom closeout skin.
During the winter, the DOG Aviation procurement
department purchased a digital level after reading about a slick way that
particular digital level could be used to ensure the blade angle of the RV-12’s
ground adjustable propeller is the same angle for both blades which results in
a balanced propeller. This particular digital level has a hole on the bottom
with a plug that can be removed revealing a threaded socket for tripod mounting
or mounting onto a fixture to quickly and easily check the propeller angle. Of course, that has nothing to do with bending
the W-1204D’s tabs, but thought I would mention it for the sake of other RV-12
builders using DOG Aviation as reference.
One of the slick features of using a digital
level is the work bench (or surface being used) does not have to be perfectly
level … just place the level on the work surface aligned along the plane the
measurement will be made and then press the bevel button. This instantly sets
the level to 0 degrees regardless of the surface angle. Moving the level up or
down will yield a reading in + or – degrees based on the direction the level is
moved. Lay the W-1204D skin flat on the surface with the tab to be measured
aligned along the plane the level was zeroed and measure the angle as in the photo
below … presto reading. Bending all of the tabs proved to be a little
time consuming, it requires patience because you need to tweak and test, tweak
and test, etc. . but it is easy and the digital level took all the guess work out of
it .
Using a digital level to check the angle of
one of the tabs on the W-1204D
bottom closeout skin after bending it with the
wooden bending tool.
The W-1204D bottom closeout skin after bending all
the tabs except for one.
The tab that gets bent to 116 was not bent at
this time … prefer doing a test fitting first as has been suggested by other
builders.
