They are probably airworthy but rather ugly. The kit I got came with the original tail surfaces already built. In my business, we have a saying "In God we Trust! All others must bring data!"Īnother question for people who know something about the early 3s. I believe these beads were cut into the form blocks by Van when they were originally produced. Think of it as being similar to trying to draw a smooth looking wavy line on an etch-a-sketch (hopefully you are not too young to not know what that is). ![]() The bead looks the way it does because it was cut into the form blocks using a 2 axis milling machine with the cranks turned by hand. The form blocks have a relief cut into them and the aluminum material is pressed into the relief to form the stiffening bead. They were then press formed on form blocks. This appears to have been done by hand with an English wheel.Īll of the ribs and bulkheads of your RV3 kit were cut out by hand. The largest formers are two-piece (2 left and right halves per former) with a squiggly stiffening indentation running up each side. The fuselage formers appear to have been hand-made. It appears to be almost as old as I am! The brakes were wrapped in newspaper ("The Oregonian") from December, 1981. I spent 5 hours inventorying my new "old" kit today. Minimum shop head dimensions to determine if the rivet length is correct. The rivet lengths shown on the plansĪre just a suggestion and not to be taken too literally (this actuallyĪpplies to a lot of things on the plans!). One way is to consolidate them all by size, then weigh Probably noted during the inventory, Van's does not give convenient The hassle of trying to figure out quantities for each size. This procedure is complicated by the large number ofĭifferent sizes of rivets in the kit which all come fromĭifferent batches and may have different aging characteristic.Īs Mike noted, it won't cost much to just replace them all just If the shop head doesn't form easily, or if there is any The only way I know to identify old rivets is to tryĭriving a few to compare the hardness vs newer ones. ![]() (they didn't anticipate such a boom of success early on, apparently!) I have been a Vintage Aircraft Association member for many years now and have always had a soft spot for old airplanes, but I didn't think I'd ever get to build a vintage airplane from a kit! :D If anyone has some insight about the clues we've listed here, I'm interested to learn more. No serial number can be found, but the people at Van's said it can be tough to trace a -3 kit because of the changes made to record keeping. Anyhow, I'm wondering if 1981 is a good estimate of the wing and fuselage kits' age. ![]() I'm trying to upload photos to a Picasa web album to share with you but not having much luck. The canopy box has a return address which is hand-written from Van's Aircraft, Cornelius, OR. The rivets and hardware are also in little brown paper bags labeled with blue sharpie. I was thinking this must have been done by one of the previous kit owners, but some parts have "RV3" included in the label, which makes me wonder if they were written at Vans. None of the pieces have any plastic covering or paper labels, but some of them do have part names hand written in blue Sharpie. All of the wing ribs are present and in good condition, in dense stacks. This appears to have been done by hand with an English wheel. There you'll see the photos and videos that person has previously shared with you.Īs always, please send any ideas/issues using the Send Feedback menu item as that's the best way to ensure we'll see it.I spent 5 hours inventorying my new "old" kit today. Additionally, you can navigate to other people’s Album Archive pages by tapping on ABOUT on their Google+ profile page (available on Android today and other platforms soon). Your Album Archive page includes a 'Photos of You' album which shows any photos you have been tagged in including photos owned by other people. You can access your album archive page from your About Me page on Google: ![]() this really is an archive (no commenting, editing, adding, etc.) and part of our transition from Picasa. On the Album Archive, you can view, download, or delete these albums and photos. This new page is an archive for Picasa Web Albums ( ) which previously collected your photo albums across Google services such as: Today we made the Google Album Archive available to all our users.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |