Aircraft Tools
I attended a builders workshop with Cleaveland Tool Company in Boone, Iowa. I HIGHLY recommend attending one of these workshops prior to plunking down some money on tools and an airplane kit. Taking the builders workshop with a tool company was great. As questions came up regarding use of different tools, Mike, our instructor, would go over to the company office and get the tool for us to try. That helped me when it came time to plunk down some cash. I knew what tools I wanted most.
For me, I found that the building process of drilling, de-burring, dimpling and squeezing rivets was fairly easy and was something I thought I could become proficient enough to continue on and build a plane. During the builders workshop, you actually build a small airfoil from Van's that has you practice a number of skills you will need during the construction of their kits.
LEFT TO RIGHT: Buzz- Owner Cleaveland Tool Co., Unknown (sorry)- RV-10 Builder, Keith- Innocent helper/bystander and owner of the completed RV pictured below, and me.
In this picture, Keith is helping me lay out a line of rivets using measurements and some basic math that will allow all rivet lines to line up straight from the row of stiffener rivets to the forward spar rivet line.
Not only did the builders workshop allow you to practice your building skills, but allowed me to meet other prospective builders. It was my first sample of the network of friendly and helpful builders. Van's has so many builders, chances are, you will not live far from at least one or two. I live in the middle of "Mayberry" Nebraska and I have met two builders and know of several others in the area that I have yet to meet.
An example of the builder camaraderie includes one builder (Keith, YES-that is a picture of his beautiful RV below) lives in Boone, IA stuck around for the better part of a weekend helping us "new" builders. This individual is not on Cleaveland's payroll or was he obligated to stay and help us. The insight he offered was invaluable. Keith even gave a student of the workshop his first RV ride. Needless to say, you couldn't peel the "RV-Grin" off his face the whole day.
Be prepared, should you go to a builders workshop, to have a good time. I enjoyed it so much, that I came home with a couple of boxes of tools and a whole lot less money in the checkbook.
The tools in this picture came to $2200. Holy Cow!!! When I picked them up at the end of the workshop, I asked the salesman at Cleaveland Tool if the tools would fit in my car. He said, "No Problem." I expected the tool kit to be A LOT BIGGER. It was all there when I ran down the inventory list.
To store all the tools I bought (and would buy in the future), I started with the top chest you see here. However, it didn't take long before I out grew the chest. I found myself just piling tools on top of other tools. So in the middle of my wing kit, I broke down and bought the lower section of the tool box you see here. Believe it or not, majority of the drawers are being used and/or full of tools. This tool box is strictly tools used for aircraft building.
This is actually my second compressor I have used on my project. I started with a oil free compressor with a 25 gallon tank that I have owned for years before I started the RV project. Oh it still works, but I have retired it to the hangar as my back up compressor. The oil free compressors are so darn noisy and when you are running grinders and drills, you WILL DEFINITELY get tired of listening to it. I decided to replace the old compressor with a new upright compressor oil bath compressor. I got this at Lowes after looking around at the local 3 big aircraft tool stores (Menards, Home depot, and Lowes). This compressor is really nice in that it has a slightly larger tank at 30 gallons, it is notably quieter than my oil free compressor, and this compressor has an operating pressure of 150 psi. This compressor turns on at 120 psi which was the pressure my other compressor turned off. So far, I have been really happy with it.
During the Empennage kit, I found a couple of holes that were difficult to get to with the straight drill so I bought a right angle drill. The right angle drill was able to get to the holes I struggled with. I really wanted the Sioux version of this drill, but at $450, I decided the Taylor would do ($249). Its down side is that it does not have a very good "teasing" trigger and it requires special drill bits that are screwed into the drill head. I am in the early stages of my wings and I haven't used this drill very much to date.
During the empennage kit, you have to torque the rudder and elevator counterweight bolts, the hinge hardware, etc. I bought this torque wrench from Cleaveland Tool. It came with a certificate of calibration with some really close tolerances. I bought the 20-150 in-Ibs version of the torque wrench. Most of the fasteners I have torqued to date, need a surprisingly low torque value. My only complaint about this toque wrench is that it is of the "break-away" design. That is, when the torque exerted on the bolt has reached the setting of the wrench, there is a slight slip on the wrench indicating that you are at your desired torque setting. At the lower end of the wrench's range, this "break-away" is very difficult to feel. At work, I have access to Snap-On torque wrenches and the "break-away" has a lot more of a solid feel, however, I would imagine that they are a lot more expensive than the CDI torque wrench. In any case, a good torque wrench is not cheap. This one was $145.00.
This little ugly tool is a cleco installation/removal tool. I found a reference to this by a fellow builder on the Yahoo RV-7/7A group. I bought this from the Yard store (http://www.yardstore.com) for $35 after shipping. Pretty crude looking but it works pretty well when you have a ton of cleco's to remove and install.
I ordered a rotary burr set from Aircraft-Tool Supply. I was having a hard time trimming the trim servo reinforcement plate to allow the trim servo arm and attachment hardware adequate clearance when the trim servo arm was fully extended through the reinforcement plate. When I took a vixen file to the reinforcement plate, it looked like it was trimmed by chewing on it. After I ordered this, I ran across a rotary burr bit for my Dremel (worked GREAT). Because of that, I haven't had an opportunity to use these yet. These were kind of spendy at $120.
I found this 220 piece Dremel accessory kit at Home Depot. A Dremel tool has proven to be VERY VALUABLE in the building process already. I have used it a lot along with a lot of the sanding and filing attachments.
I got this aluminum hand nibbler and it works great. I have seen where other builders have needed to trim the horizontal stabilizer to accommodate the re-designed counterweights Van's has put on the elevators. I am hoping that this will allow me to trim the HS with a professional fit and finish. I tried it out on some scrap stiffeners I had laying around. Very controllable and a nice clean cut.
This is an FAA publication detailing construction techniques. I figure when the DAR comes out and to inspect the aircraft, this will be some of the criteria the plane is evaluated against. A lot of information in this circular... I don't have it committed to memory yet 
Safety wire kit I purchased from Aircraft Tool Supply. This was their professional kit. I haven't done anything more than open the case on this. Van's plans call out safety wiring the trim tab hinge pin to the trim spar. However, no need to get into a hurry purchasing a safety wire kit. The hinge pin supplied during the empennage kit is to short to bend and safety wire to the trim spar. Van's says to not worry about it as a longer hinge pin will be available during fuselage kit assembly.
I bought this cheap Campbell Housefield die grinder from Home Depot for about $20. It it nice and small. It doesn't seem to have a lot of power, but has worked on everything I put it on so far. I also ordered some 1" unitized EXL Scotch-Brite wheels to debur the lightening holes on the wing ribs. It appears that there will be LOTS and LOTS of de-burring. These scotch-brite wheels are, in general, fantastic for de-burring. I am not sure how long these little wheels will last, so I bought 6 of them to get me started. They are around $4.50/ea.
I bought an electronic caliper from Aircraft Tool Supply. I really like this caliper. It has a good solid feel to it and a crisp LCD display. It is accurate to 0.0005". That is really getting it down to a "Nat's A_ _". I have only used it a couple of times to verify dimensions. If you don't have a set of Go-No Go rivet gauges (which are a lot cheaper), you may choose to use this to verify proper shop head on your rivets. (RECOMMENDATIONS: Get/or make a set of Go-No Go gauges instead of using one of these to measure your rivet heads).
The picture below is of Cleaveland's close quarter dimple die for 3/32" rivets. This little thing is welded to your run of the mill vise-grip. It works pretty good, however, the dimples ARE NOT as"crisp" as the close quarter dies using the "nail". You WILL NEED THESE during the empennage kit (rudder, elevators) so you might as well buy them up front. I believe that Avery tools has their own version of this, but theirs is welded to a "standard" vise-grip and not the "needle-nose" version of the vise-grip.
You will need the cordless screwdriver to debur the hundreds, if not thousands, of holes just in the empennage (You can use a manual de-burring tool, but expect to give yourself carpal tunnel). Cleaveland Tool mounts a de-burring bit to a hex shaft that works in this screwdriver. I got this Craftsman version with the VersaPak battery system that folds in the center. I bought two hex shaft mounted de-burring bits and cut the shaft down on one of them so that I could get in close quarters with the screwdriver. With the VersaPak battery system, you can have a couple of batteries on charge and swap them out easy enough to debur until your finger is worn out. Completing the empennage, I have never run a battery completely down in one de-burring session (come close, however). At any rate, you will be tired of de-burring by the time you run a battery down and probably be ready for a break.
I purchased the c-clamps AFTER I learned my lesson on the left elevator trim tab (see empennage entries). When bending the trim tab and left elevator skins, DO NOT USE "QUICK CLAMPS"!!! The quick clamps work well during wood working, but they do not hold the skins and wood blocks firm enough to prevent the wood blocks from moving during the bending process. Bending of the trim tab and elevator skins started out okay until you make the "crisp" bend in the skin using the rivet hammer and a flush set. If you use the Quick Clamps, the block of wood WILL MOVE on you (and yes, I did use double sided tape to hold the blocks in place.) On my last bend, I found one c-clamp I had for a previous project. I used that one c-clamp and came out with the best bend (figures, it had to be the last) AND the block of wood DID NOT move when using the rivet hammer. SPEND THE MONEY and get some c-clamps if you don't already have them. I went overboard as you can see above, however, I will be able to use some of those clamps to clamp the wing spars to the wing jig in later construction. Clamps you see in the picture cost me around $70.
I bought this aluminum wedge for the drill press so that when I need to drill push rods, I can get better alignment. Haven't got far enough in the project to try this out yet. I did use it, however, to make myself a PVC wrench to installed rod end bearings and it worked well for that.
I upgraded my shop vac by buying a nice small one that was easy to get out, use, and put away. I had a large shop vac, but it was just so cumbersome to use. This was around $29 and WELL WORTH IT.
I remove only the minimal amount of vinyl wrapping on the Al-Clad skins. I used this soldering gun to remove the vinyl around the rivet holes prior to de-burring and dimpling. This is Weller's smaller soldering gun. If I was to shop all over again, I would buy their larger soldering gun (I think that it is a 250 watt model). This one takes a while to warm up (even on high) and if you go to fast, the heat transfer to the aluminum skin cools the tip to much to melt the vinyl coating. I think that the 250 watt gun would keep up better.
Don't attempt to work on the empennage without buying a Dremel tool. I have used this in several areas for de-burring and when working on the left elevator, I used it to remove material from the trim servo opening to allow room for the trim servo push rod. This is Dremel's more expensive one with the flexible shaft attachment. When you buy the Dremel tool, look for the high speed cutter bit (# 115). That cutter bit removes aluminum like butter and is easy to control to make a nice straight line. The sanding drums are also very useful. Get both sizes of the sanding drums and mandrels.
Pretty straight forward here. I have a Sioux 3600 rpm air drill. Love the drill... It has a great teasing trigger, feels good in your hands, and is relatively quiet when compared to my Taylor right angle drill. I would consider a keyless chuck or if I had more money, a second drill. I seem to spend a lot of time changing drill bits and looking for the chuck key. The other tool is the 2x Sioux rivet hammer. This has worked really well, it fits my wife's hands perfectly and she was able to set professional looking rivets within the first dozen or so she did. I bought the 2x as it allows more hits with less force on each hit. Neither of us has a "calibrated finger" on the trigger yet so this allows us more opportunities to get it right before having to drill the rivet out. (NOTE TO THE MARRIED BUILDER: I started out teaching my wife to run the bucking bar and she did okay at that. Then I talked her into trying the rivet hammer, she is GREAT at using that, however be forewarned, I haven't been able to pry the rivet hammer out of her hands when I need help riveting.)
I originally bought two bucking bars with my RV kit (the two bucking bars on the right) and after having some trouble getting to some of the rivets, I bought some extra bucking bars. In the empennage, I didn't run across any rivets we couldn't get to with one of my two original bucking bars. I need to spend some more time polishing a smooth edge on the sides. You will have to turn these on the side to get to some of the rivets in the horizontal stabilizer.
Here is my squeezing tools and yokes. Both the hand and pneumatic squeezer are fitted with quick adjustment rods and yoke release pins. For me, I would not consider building a plane without a PNEUMATIC SQUEEZER. They are that good!!! I bought the "Main Squeeze" from Cleaveland Tools. I haven't hardly used it as the pneumatic squeezer is so much faster. However, when I was at the builders workshop, I had a chance to use Main Squeeze and the Tatco squeezer. Overall, I like the Main Squeeze over the Tatco squeezer. It required less pressure and used the same yokes as the pneumatic squeezer. What I liked about the Tatco was that it was easier to use with one hand, however, the amount of force needed to set a rivet was noticeably more. Multiply that by the number of rivets in the empennage alone and you better eat your Wheaties. The pneumatic squeezer is expensive at $450 without yokes or quick change options, but it is the BEST money I have spent on a tool to date.
This is the dimple dies I have so far. What Van's and Cleaveland do not tell you is that you are going to need a #10 dimple die (and countersink cutter) for the rudder and elevators. Additionally, when you get to the wing tanks, you will need a tank dimple die (for the best fit/finish of countersink rivets when riveting ribs and skins and sealing with pro-seal. Also, you can see if you look closely, I have ground off a corner of the 426-3 female dimple die. I did this in order to dimple some nut plates in the left elevator. If you don't and you choose to dimple your nut plates, you can expect to break the pin on the male die.
I haven't had a chance to use the Edge Forming Tool yet. This is used when you roll the leading edges of your control surfaces. This places a ever, so slight, bend in the forward leading skin. Then when you blind rivet the leading edges together, the front skin sits nice and tight against the aft skin. I used this in the builders workshop and it WORKED GREAT!
Aviation snips. I used these a lot when cutting and fabricating stiffeners. The left and right aviation snips came with my tool kit. The straight snips I already owned. Don't worry about buying the straight snips. The left and right snips are all I have needed so far.
Below, Pop Rivet Tool, fluting pliers (center) and Offset Hand Seamer. All of these work great, no complaints.
Unibits, need I say more?
This labeler comes in very handy to label the bags and bags of parts you will get with the kit. Spend the money, buy one and get yourself a couple of extra rolls of label tape.
Some of the measuring tools I use. I use the mini-square ALOT. Works well to not only measure, but to check that my rib flanges are at right angles when fluting. The stainless angle finder, I really haven't used much yet. And finally, with Van's pre-punched kits, I haven't had to use the rivet spacer at all. EVERYTHING has been pre-punched.
Flaring and tubing bender. The flaring tool was not cheap, but should do all the tubing I will run across. I went with this, higher priced model, as it was able to flare in tighter spaces. When getting into running tubing, I was not sure how much room I was going to need. I did a test sample when it came in the mail and it made a really nice flare. During my fuel tank tubing work, the tubing bender worked acceptably. It has a nice feel to it. It wasn't that expensive. I think that it was around $40.
After I started working on my fuel tank internal "plumbing", I bought a set of tubing bending springs. This allows me to "tweak" any of my bends and ensures that I don't kink any tubing runs.
In addition to getting some nice tubing bends, I also bought this tubing bender on a recommendation from some other builders. This tubing bender will make 180 degree tight radius bends. The little tubing bender I bought initially, will only make 90 degree bends. I haven't used this bender yet other than practice bends on scrap tubing. The bender worked pretty well on the scrap tubing.
I ordered Van's Fuel Tank Pressure Testing kit since I had to order a trim tab hinge. I think that this was $5. This worked REALLY well when pressure testing my fuel tanks. However, you may not get all of the caps. I added a fuel return line back to my tanks so I had to buy another cap in order to close all my tank AN fittings.
Parts storage is something that I was concerned about. How do I keep track of all the little parts that come with the kits. I bought 2-39 drawer parts bins and these work pretty well. (Just don't let you wife step on any of the drawers you have setting on the floor while you are riveting or all of our rivets go everywhere, don't ask me how I know this).
In the bottom left hand corner, I found some of these "no-spill" containers that hang up. There is a little slot in the top and when you squeeze the container, the slot opens so that you can pour out some rivets into a bin or tray. They work really well. However, if you shake them aggressively and upside down, expect at least a couple of rivets to fall out. Normal knocking over or dropping, you should be in good shape.
I also use the small drawers in the orange container. You will get a lot of bags of rivets that will have anywhere from 50-100 rivets in them. These little parts containers work good for those bags of parts.
I initially bought an expensive buffer/polisher from Sears (around $100). Then I got cheap, returned the buffer and went over to Home Depot and picked up this 6" thin bench grinder. It works really well (with the exception of the light.) and cost me $35. I got the grinder stand at Sears and just turned it sideways in order to fit the Ryobi grinder. I have 2 different 3M scotchbrite wheels on this grinder. The left 3M wheel is the light de-burring wheel (CAT Part #: 3MW77S6 with reducing bushing CAT Part #: 3MR150). This light de-burring wheel I actually like better than the cut & polish wheel on the right. The light de-burring wheel is softer and does a better job when de-burring edges. The right de-burring wheel is the more aggressive cut and polish de-burring wheel (CAT Part #: 3MW7A6). This wheel works best on material that needs more de-burring (rounding off stiffeners, breaking edges on the front spar reinforcements for the horizontal stabilizer, just to name a few). When those parts need the cut an polish wheel, I still go back with the light de-burring wheel to really smooth them out. Probably a little overkill on de-burring, but I like the results.
I also bought these Hougen hole cutters from Cleaveland Tool (CAT Part #: DBHC6). In case you haven't noticed, I am kind of partial to Cleaveland Tool. They have been extremely prompt at getting my orders out and so far, everything has worked great. Besides, they are relatively local (~200 miles away).
Anyway, these Hougen cutters are extremely sharp. The manufacturer has a web site (see below) and they had an interesting picture which basically shows the difference between the standard hole saw and their cutters (now I am sure that this is partly propaganda on their part), but considering how sharp these cutters are, I have no doubt that they "mill" a crisp hole instead of just "tearing it" like a standard hole cutter does.
These cutters are made by Hougen Manufacturing http://www.hougen.com/cutters/sheetmetal/Holcutters.html. This particular kit cuts holes up to 2 1/2". I probably won't use these that much, but now I am able to cut holes with Unibits up to an inch and these Hougen cutters will take me up to 2 1/2".
I also bought a fly cutter that will cut holes up to 6" in diameter. The fly cutter was the cheapest cutter/bit. My unibits were more expensive than this fly cutter. Anyway, I should be in good shape to cut any hole I can think of for this project.
After reviewing some web site's of fellow builders, several of them have raved about the Semco sealant guns. These are basically a fancy caulking gun that dispense tank sealant (among other sealants) from disposable cartridges. Specifically, they will dispense 6 oz Flamemaster sealant offered by Van's. I looked to see what one of these things would cost new..... I about choked when I saw these were going for $250 at Aircraft Tool Supply. I then decided to surf e-bay (I hate e-bay!!!). After getting outbid a few times, I finally got the winning bid for a sealant gun (kit). I thought that I did pretty good at getting the setup below for $86 (including shipping). This sealant gun is in really nice shape. I tried it out when I got it and everything appears to be working correctly.
UPDATE: The sealant gun works well, but I ended up not using it because it was expensive to use the sealant cartridges. I found a lot of times, I just needed a “little more” sealant. If I was doing it over, I wouldn’t buy a sealant gun. On the other side, I did put this up on vansairforce.net classified ads and I was able to sell it in under 4 hrs. I didn’t use it, but I didn’t lose any money on it either.
I also purchased a 50' hose for the Semco sealant gun. I am not sure how much this will get used. I purchased it through e-bay and it looks brand new. The air hose currently connected to the gun is pretty short. The Semco air hose is really pliable and light weight.
I bid on a Brady ID Pro Plus that was listed as new on e-bay. This labeler is great for labeling electrical wires, aluminum tubing, or anything else that should require a label on the plane. I specifically wanted an electrical wire labeler so that I could use heat shrink labels. Anyway, this labeler will help my electrical wiring look neat and professional. My winning bid was $207. The cheapest I could find this on the internet through a retailer was $385. If the battery will hold a charge, this thing will be as good as new. It was cosmetically near perfect and I saved myself $180. Not bad.
The contraption below is a drill guide for drilling out AN470 rivets. They are not real hard to drill out, but this keeps everything aligned and perpendicular to the rivet. I have used it to drill out several rivets already and every rivet came out without enlarging the hole. I got this at the Yard Store. This was a very good purchase.
The microstop countersink cutter below only has a half cage. This will be nice when countersinking holes that are close to a flange or other interference. I haven't had to countersink to many holes that fit this situation, however in the rear wing spars, there are two holes where a full cage countersink cutter will not align with the hole if the cage is installed. This was cheap, so I thought I would give it a try.
I had to order some misc parts from Wicks Aircraft and I came across this disposable spray gun. It is a disposable aerosol can where you can put in your own paint, primer, etc. into the jar at the bottom. The sprayer is supposed to spray up to 16 oz. of paint/primer. I thought this would be nice (if it works) to spray some touch up with the Epoxy primer. This was about 5 bucks. After I get a chance to use it, I will update this log entry to reflect the experience.
UPDATE: I have used this sprayer to touch up some primer on my aft wing spar and it does spit out primer, but it doesn't fully atomize the primer so the finish does not even compare to the quality of a spray gun (I got splotches and runs). My recommendation would be to PASS on this product and just buy a small touch up paint sprayer. I think that the idea is pretty neat though. If it only worked a little better.
I added a 7" chop saw to my growing inventory of tools. I ran into problems when it came time to cut aluminum angle when it was longer than about 15" with my bandsaw. Therefore, I had to break out the hacksaw and cut the angle by hand. The chop saw will prevent having to use the hacksaw. Checking other builder web site's, they state that the chop saw is worth every penny when it comes to the fuselage kit. It was pretty cheap, I bought it off e-bay for $38 including shipping. If you have access to a Harbor Freight store, buy it there. They get about the same price as I paid on e-bay. Harbor Freight didn't list the chop saw on their web site or I would have bought it from them.
UPDATE: I really don’t recommend this tool for cutting the aluminum angle. The aluminum gets VERY HOT. I got a metal cutting band saw and I LIKE THAT A LOT BETTER. The metal cutting bandsaw cuts the aluminum very cleanly AND it stays cool to the touch. I would stay clear of the chop saw to cut long aluminum angles unless your budget cannot afford anything else.
I bought some short cleco's for those tight locations. Kind of spendy and as far as my wings go, I haven't had to many occasions to use them. So I got a couple dozen of the two popular sizes....
I like Boelube to lubricate when I cut or drill in various applications. I like the paste version of Boelube better than the solid (the stuff on the left). I believe that I got the paste version from The Yardstore.
Now this is where I get kind of eccentric. I bought a CNC mill (not just for the plane project). This thing is incredible. I wished that I would have had this when I was on the empennage. There were so many things that needed cutout where I could have used CAD to make the cuts more precise. This is kind of an expensive tool, but it is WAY COOL. See my CNC Mill section of the website to see what I have done with the mill.
When I got the CNC Mill, it was very apparent that I was going to need a way to cut some of the aluminum extrusions I was going to be milling out. This thing is also rapidly becoming one of my favorite tools. Anytime I would cut an aluminum angle on my wood bandsaw, the aluminum would get very hot. When I cut the largest 6061 aluminum angle with this saw, the aluminum stays cool to the touch (even without lubrication). That has to be better on the aluminum than letting it get so hot during cutting.
UPDATE: I love the band saw for cutting aluminum angle. Especially, the 6061 angles you have to cut during the fuselage fabrications.
I had a cheap Craftsman wood cutting bandsaw that Tami bought some 20 years ago. When I started the RV, I outfitted the Craftsman bandsaw with a metal cutting blade. It worked okay on thin aluminum sheets (less than 0.032&rdquo
, however, cutting 6061 aluminum angle with it was horrible. When I did my garage renovation, I tossed the bandsaw in the trash (It had other issues). So when I got my garage renovation more or less complete, I ordered a new wood / metal bandsaw from Grizzly. I really like this bandsaw so far. It has a variable speed controller, so you can adjust the blade speed to anything you want from 150 fpm to 3000 fpm by just dialing in your desired speed. It cuts through the heavy 6061 aluminum angle like nobody’s business.
It's only downside for some users would be that it requires a 220 V outlet AND the price. Delivered, this was around $1200 from Grizzly. Well worth it if you have the money. If I was only going to use it for building the RV, I would probably look for something cheaper. I have a need to use this for the RV, CNC machine projects, and Tami of course will use it for cutting out wood figurines.
