Build Update January 6th 2020: Back Seat Cushion

I learned how to use the sewing machine last night and it was so much faster than sewing my test piece by hand! It made me feel like an industrial revolution era housewife who just got a mechanized sewer. I made part callouts for every piece of fabric I needed and what color then I cut as needed to avoid mixups. I observed that there was a lot of crossover in the craftsmanship and artisanhood of sewing and building. The hardest part was the zipper. It stretched the fabric strangely and required very high precision, which was difficult to pull off. Luckily I had made a test piece with an extra zipper I had bought. This allowed me to work out all the bugs in my process and by the time I was sewing the real zipper I had a reliable method. The seat will be a little bit more difficult because the shape is more complex. I am excited to have my seats finished and installed.

Build Update April 5 2018: Dissasembling the Aerovee

The engine I bought was already built, and had not been run. My dad and I planned to take it all apart to give me a better understanding of the engine, as well as to identify any problems before they got bad. The Arovee engine was heavy and awkward to move. at the time it was sitting on the workbench with everything installed. Going into this I had only enough sense to tell you which cylinder is the #1, 2, 3, and 4, and I knew some of the terminology, such as crackshaft. I frequently asked my dad "what do you call that part?" we began unbolting stuff in roughly reverse order from the manual (if you're familiar with sonex plans, you're used to backwards) In under an hour we had stripped many of the external parts off and the engine had lost at least 20 pounds! A box was designated as the hardware box, so it'll be like legos trying to find the right bolts and nuts again when I reassemble it. the important part is that they're all together and no

Plane Painted

When I flew my plane to OSH23, I saw an artist painting a small depiction of an airplane. She was painting a very small photorealistic scene from a phone image. I could not believe how detailed she was able to make it! She let me watch over he shoulder as she worked. I was so impressed that I commisisoned a similar painting of my sonex. Id like to share that painting with you all. Her name is Rhonda DeGarmo. She has a lot of other work. If you're interested in getting in touch with her please reach out to me and I will pass along her information.

Build Update March 15 2020: Prime Time

So everyone is kinda freaked out over corona lately. My gymnastics competitions have been canceled, and so have my classes. This has been great for building, I've got all week and maybe more to get some great work in. I have been doing all the last things on the cowling before it's time to prime and paint. The final few things were adding my quarter turn southco fasteners, finishing the air exit cutout, and doing a final sand. (if you can ever even say final and sand in the same sentence) Then it's time to prime. The southco process started by going to southco's website to order an assortment of different sizes. When I completed my order the shipping cost came out to like $40, which was clearly wrong. I was ordering less than 20 studs. It would fit in a flat rate envelope easily. So I scrapped my southco order and went to Aircraft Spruce to order my cheese platter of sizes. The shipping there was much more reasonable and I combined it with some other items I n

Isaac Shultz's Sonex Project

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