Below is the message Rob Houseman originally sent when he made his fabricated
aluminum
mandrel and retainer. It has been through a few hands but I have finished
with it and am making it available to anyone who need to use it. Contact
me and I will send it to the first asker. Thanks, Rob.
Bill McClellan
A164
Id like to think that I am not the only builder to have found a way to
permanently
bond the tailplanes to the torque tubes.
After struggling to forcibly remove the tailplanes (which required both a large
pry bar and sufficient heat) after my first attempt at following the factorys
procedure, I decided that there is a much safer way to do the job. Substitute
a mandrel for the torque tube and do the work on the work bench instead on
the airplane. The attached drawings show how I did this.
The epoxy still bonded the tailplane to the mandrel, even with plenty of wheel
bearing grease on the mandrel and frequent rotation of the mandrel while the
epoxy
cured, but now I had a means to apply force against the rib via a screw into
the outer mandrel section and a closed end tube against the rib (not shown
in the drawings).
In addition to using the mandrel instead of the torque tube I fabricated an
aluminum
retainer rather than rely on the fiberglass-epoxy layup alone to retain
TP06, but this is probably unnecessary.
For anyone who wants to use this method I will provide my (no longer needed)
mandrel
assembly at no cost just pay the shipping charges.
Best regards,
Rob Housman
Irvine, CA
Europa XS Tri-Gear
A070
Airframe complete
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