Stearman build

The mounting plates were fabricated by cross drilling at the 25deg  

The sleeves were set at 25 deg by supergluing a couple of 15mm gland nuts on a fire clay baked up with sone tile cement. 

Please explain cross-drilling. If I tried to get that angle the drill would wander (or did you glue it to a wooden block and drill through the block)?
 

Hi John - Slot in wooden block is at 25 degrees into which plates are are a tight fit.
Drill guide hole in block at 90 degrees - plate held captive so drill cannot wander.
Yorkshire Tea is essential for such projects. !!
Regards
Colin.A
 

I have many tools and machines but not one of everything so have to adapt tasks to the tools i do have. 

Drilled thru the wood block and plates with a 4mm drill followed by a 6mm as a prerequisite to boring thru with the my most suitable end mill (14mm) in the milling machine. (because end mills cant bore within  their centres) 

Finally i opened the bore to match the 15mm tube using and expanding reamer 
 

4Pedalsfly wrote:

Hi John - Slot in wooden block is at 25 degrees into which plates are are a tight fit.
Drill guide hole in block at 90 degrees - plate held captive so drill cannot wander.
Yorkshire Tea is essential for such projects. !!
Regards
Colin.A

HAR DID THA KNOW THAT !

Now complete -shown fitted to a demo spat, adding 20g per side. The addition boss will add substantial extra rigidity to the axle. 

Have now finalised all the dimensions for the Cabane, Interplane struts and rigging wires with temporary fixings which will be made with a mixture of metal and carbon, then sleeved with K & S alloy streamlined tube. 

These are the K & S tubes for the interplane struts which will be reinforced with carbon tube 

Ive made my own lightweight thread / carbon adapters using these aluminium alloy bolts which have been knurled to give better adhesion in the carbon tube 
Then ive removed the pins from some 3mm clevis to provide the connection 

More progress on the fwd fuselage attaching the 0.8mm plywood skins - Amazing how versatile this material is with a lot of water and heat. 

more plywood prep work