Mylar Templates

Instead of going to Sun-n-Fun, I started to cut out the templates, and way under-estimated the amount of time it will take to get everything cut out.  I spent two hours cutting out the main rib templates, F2 and F7 and transferring them to mylar to later cut out of metal.

I think I'll just make the patterns that are used more than once out of mylar.  Otherwise, I'll just cut them out of the copies I made of the plans to help reduce the time.   That reminds me, I made copies of my plans at a blueprint printer based on some reading I did online.  Two copies of the full set of plans was about $40.  I thought that was reasonable assuming the whole airplane should be about $20,000.

I was nervous about the copies not being accurate, so I used some plexiglass I had laying around and made a quick light box by arranging some boards and a flashlight.  Here is a really bad shot of the end result...



I laid the copies on top of the originals sheet by sheet, and found them to be spot on accurate.  Here is a close up of two plans on top of each other.



Here are the templates I made today.  I keep calling them mylar, but they are basically plastic poster board from Michaels.  Florida gets humid, so I thought they would hold up better.  I also have about 5 other templates cut out of the plan copies that are still just on paper.  I spent about an hour reviewing the plans trying to decide what to do when the templates overlap on the plans.  Dave did this occasionally to fit more on one sheet of paper.  Not a big deal,  just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything.  If you notice, there are two rear rib portions.  There is a slight variance in ribs 1-4 to accommodate the spar caps.