Bent gear legs

As you probably know I am converting an RV-8A kit to a more standard 8 configuration. Of course these days, seems Van’s is going more for the nose dragger look…maybe that’s becoming more standard?

I digress…

I had to buy my own mains and looking at my budget had to decide where to spend $ for those little extras.  Landing gear was not on that list.  For what I’d spend on fancier Aluminum (and admittedly lighter, cooler looking and more straightforward) I could get standard steel legs, fairings and enough left over for a Todd’s Canopy, get my seats covered locally.

Thanks to Vern Darly for alerting me, one day someone put up a set of brand new gear legs (still in the wrapper from Vans), hardware and the fairings.  I got the whole shootin’ match for I think about $300 plus shipping.  ‘Nough said about costs savings.

However as I am in the gear install phase, I finally opened them up, laid them out only to notice they didn’t match.  Something was wrong.

The ears on each end were bent out with the end that attaches to the fuse out by about 3/8′ (see image below):

I was a little concerned as Van’s has a policy that they will not replace or swap parts if you are a second hand purchaser, even for new parts.  I was concerned about how to best go about fixing this.  Without adjustment the right gear (bent gear leg) would cause the right side of the aircraft to be lower and not set level.

However as I talked to another RV builder (Smokey Ray) about it I happened to mention that there was also a bow in the main section  of that leg (between the two ears) and the light came on:  All I needed to do was get that section straightened by taking out that slight bow and the ends should be back in the correct angle.  I’m off today to get that done or find a shop locally to do it.

Here is a shot showing the bow.  I know it’s kind of hard to see, but you get the idea:

My question is: How’d these get out of the door like this?  QC? Oh well, at least it’s fixable.

My RV-8 Homemade Heat-Curing Box

Interior painting is quite a can of worms if you visit most of the sites for home builders.  A lot of opinions and experience to back up most everyone’s opinion: Should I use rattle can for interior? Should I use 2-part epoxy and gun? Should I just leave it alone?

Whatever the case, no matter what paint you go with, well cured paint will last longer than improperly cured paint.  Curing refers to the paint becoming harder due to the solvents (carriers) working themselves out leaving the parts that won’t evaporate behind.  That takes time but can be accelerated by using heat.

My work professionally in the Amazon rainforest with Mission Aviation Fellowship gave me a lot of day to day A&P experiences most don’t get here in the US.  We learned to make do with what we had at hand as there were no Walmart or Home Depot Aviation Departments.  We did a lot of painting as we touched up the planes, did minor sheet metal repairs and so on.  Add to that we didn’t use 2 part epoxy (ala Imron) unless we could mix up at least one pot and use it all.  Therefore often, we used rattle can paint for these small jobs.  It worked fine in a real world/production environment where safety came first.

But to do that in the rain forest where we got between 20-30 FEET of rain a year, we had to use heat boxes to cure the rattle can paint projects.  We often left them in these boxes over night.

That said, I needed/wanted to heat cure some of my small pieces from time to time to harden the rattle can paint and this was my $6/10 minute device.  The photo at left is of the tailwheel weldment for my RV-8 after spraying with Rustoleum Professional lt. gray primer and gray top-coat.

The point is, you don’t have to get fancy to get results.  Like Mr. Clark said when building one of his “devices” to use on the bad guys in Tom Clancey’s Without Remorse: “Good enough is good enough”.

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