Brodhead Pietenpol Association

Richard Roller

Over 23 years of flying N34KP was damaged a couple of times when the copilots seat front plywood support was kicked. I've decided to reinforce the edges during the rebuilt. We'll see if this helps. It is much stiffer. Of course, I may have made it easier to kick off the glue line!

Richard Roller

Test fit of the rudder bar and aileron/elevator controls.

Richard Roller

Just searching brakes on this site comes up with hundreds of hits. And as Oscar suggested, West Coast Pietenpol. As far as pedals go, they have been used in Piets. BUT, it's an easy way to damage your wooden rudder. People get excited when landings get crazy and shove on both pedals trying to stop ...

Richard Roller

Okay. I've been in Ireland on a memorial trip for my late wife, Lisa. I promise to get restarted on 34KP when I get home.

Richard Roller

A scout would be interesting. Any thoughts on what you might want to for an engine?

Richard Roller

I finished welding the repair into the aileron torque tube yesterday. Today I drilled the mounting holes, using a guide block and backup wood blocks.

Richard Roller

A test fit of the control torque tube after cutting out the bent part. The new tube is just tack welded at the moment. Nice fit and no binding (yet) when I move it left to right. It appears to have bent where it hit the rudder bar mount when the front end collapsed in the crash. There is a nice dent ...

Richard Roller

On 34KP they were screwed to the longerons. No nut plates.

Richard Roller

I've been mentioned on the radio! I donated this morning to my local Kansas Public Radio station during their fund drive. I mentioned (online donation) that I listen to the classical broadcast while rebuilding my airplane in the dining room. They used it on air, wondering if it was a model or what ...

Richard Roller

Richard Roller

I have no idea where he came up with the static buttons.

Richard Roller

Sorry Douwe! I didn't realize who I was replying to until I was finished!

Richard Roller

My Piet was built without static ports originally. It has "static buttons" on the airspeed indicator and the altimeter. It works.

Never the less, I don't like it that way. It can be erratic at times. The pilots instrument installation in the Piet tends to trap air (pressure) which messes with the ...

Richard Roller

I'm glad to see you are making progress.

Your questions.
1. 34KP has a 0 to 30 psi gauge. It'll show 15 psi at start up, I use Valvoline 20w50 detergent oil. By the time I taxi out and take off it'll show 5 to 10 psi and then drops off to showing 0 psi in flight. I'd love to find a 20 psi gauge ...

Richard Roller

Done.

Richard Roller

Glued up and curing.

Richard Roller

I glued a wedge into the area of the seat back to the gear/liftstrut carry though. Also cutout the torque tube opening.

Richard Roller

Test fitting the front cockpit seat back.

Richard Roller

The Piet doesn't have floorboards, as such. Your feet are on the bottom 1/4" plywood. Which is a structural member of the fuselage truss. If you plan on using carbon fiber panels, you need to do some load calculations.

Richard Roller

Test fitting cabane attach fittings in the upper longerons. Nice fit.

Richard Roller

Test fitting rear cabane attach fittings in the upper longerons. Nice fit.

Richard Roller

The tank would be in the magneto bay.

Richard Roller

While test fittings controls today, I discovered the aileron torque tube between cockpits was bent a little in the crash. Always something.

Richard Roller

No. Already had a pin vise and bits to clean out the ends. Used a deep socket to set the ferrules.

Richard Roller

Piets tend to be tail heavy. On 34KP the engine (model A) was moved forward 7" to balance the a/c, short fuselage to the plans. This may be an attempt to help the tail heaviness. The main issue is not the pilots distance from the firewall, but his distance related to the wing. If the dimensions from ...

Richard Roller

We bought bulk Slick plug lead and made to fit.

Richard Roller

Yes. It's getting pretty sturdy even without the side plywood.

Richard Roller

Richard Roller

I decided to block the corners of the firewall station truss.

Richard Roller

Richard Roller

Plugging along.

Richard Roller

Slow progress. I've flip the fuselage back upright and started the last gussets. Currently glueing the last two inboard splice doublers.

Richard Roller

The pressure you quote is for resorcinol glue and doesn't apply to epoxy. Contact pressure is all that's required. Read the T88 instructions.

Richard Roller

I'm going to ignore the broken staples. They broke off flush with the plywood, and I can't get hold of them short of digging away some of the plywood.

Richard Roller

The glue up on the floorboard worked well. I've planed the edges flush and removed the staples. Several staples broke while trying to remove them. Glued in I guess. I'll have to think about this a little.

Richard Roller

Glued the floor board on just now. No help, that was a busy 30 minutes!

Richard Roller

The rear cross piece is in and I'm fitting the floor board.

Richard Roller

Forward cross piece glued in.

Richard Roller

I forced myself to do something today on the Piet. I cut out the ash cross members for the landing gear and started the glueing of the forward cross piece. The floor board is ready to glue on as soon as I get the rear one in.

Richard Roller

I picked up a piece of white ash today to make the engine bearers and landing gear stations pieces.

Richard Roller

Years ago I redrew the steel tube drawings stretched to the long piet length. My thought was to use a 60° V6 on it. I'll probably never built it. But who knows, a V6 on 34KP?

Richard Roller

I was mulling over a change to the engine mount brackets at the firewall. I've decided to increase the brackets bolt patterns by one bolt, both horizontally and vertically. So I pulled the existing corner gussets off and I'm gluing new ones on sized to the new bolt pattern. This is in case I decide ...

Richard Roller

No X wings here! In a swamp, or otherwise!

Richard Roller

Attempting to glue the two pieces together.

Richard Roller

The second one (left) turned out nicer than the first. I'll clean up the first one and glue tomorrow.

Richard Roller

I appreciate the thought, Oscar. I have the sides and everything else. I just didn't have the 1/4" for the floor. I ordered 2 pieces of 1/4" x 2 x 4 because it saved me a bunch of shipping cost.

Speaking of shipping cost. I'm doing a road trip to Wicks tomorrow, for lift struts. It's 5 hours away ...

Richard Roller

I have to scarph 2 pieces together for the floor board. Here goes nothing!

Richard Roller

I was out at the hanger taking some measurements on the wing. I found something interesting. When Ken built the wing, he did the compression struts in the middle of the wing different. Instead of offsetting the struts with the 1/4" plywood to clear the bottom of the wing fabric, he cut a curve, like ...

Richard Roller

Richard Roller

Lots of family crap going on, getting in the way of Piet rebuild time
I have managed to get some of the blocking for the landing gear/lift strut fittings started.

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