IMAC Double Build, Carden Pro 124" Extra 300 40%

How easy was it to drill the bolts that is not easy to do. We're they high grade alloy bolts. Did you get special drill bits and lubricants.

 

Your doing just like it's done on a really aircraft , are you .025 or .032 diameter wire . I guess using tap cutting oil won't be enough .

I dont know for sure but maybe McMaster Carr has socket heads with safety wire , i have seen bolts on their site with safety hole through the head .
But im sure you already checked , they would be a special order item and probably would have to buy them in bulk like a hundred a shot .

Love your determination and your good quality of hole drilling , did you glue the threaded rods end in the fibre shaft with Hysol epoxy , those rod will never flex!

 

Found some images of safety wire screw,bolts and castellated nut . McMasters Carr doesn't have and socket style bolts/screws with hole in the head . Ooops .

 

Cam,

and others

We do lots of drilling and taping here as you may suspect, an option if you don't have tapping oil is to use bar soap as a lubricant for drilling and tapping ( bath soap) we use it all the time and it not as messy as oil. A drop of liquid detergent works well too!!

Al

 

I still have a white bar of lubricant for the drill bits, I use it when drilling out rivets and old bolts that were ceased from corrosion. Just leftovers from my aviation maintenance days along with a bunch of old hardware pieces .

Kyle sounds like a great guy, it was very thoughtful of him to inform you about the safety wire procedures. If you were doing a lot of lock wire i believe Snap-On makes a lock wire pliers which helps speed up the job . Still can't believe you drilled all those bolt heads for the exhaust amazing. So the South East conference must include Floridia ,will you ever fly against that conference in any upcoming events . Sounds like Kyle was your caller or helper when you flew iMac events, these types of guys are hard to replace and are their knowledge will be missed.

Back in my racing days we used carbon fibre rods for the elevator , we didn't have a threaded shaft and had to insert the 4-40 rod into a block of wood ,glued and inserted into the shaft and wrapped with epoxy resin and high strength thread wrapped around the outside where the rod is inserted. Very rarely would I get flex in the shaft from high G-force we were pulling in the corners . If the elevator input started to get soft then more input was required from the transmitter, a sign that we were going extremely fast .This only happened a couple of times in my fitheen years of racing I felt the shaft flex under very high G load and once during the 1989 Nats in Tri cities Wsahington flying against Dave Shadel. You won't have any such problems on your Plane .

 

When i saw all those Allen head bolts drilled I new that you spent some doing that. Lucky you bought 12 drill bits because you were going to need most of them. Lucky you did not end up with a broken drill stuck in the bolt because that is almost impossible to get out. I remember doing that just getting frustrated and trying to drill the broken drill bit out with another drill and we all no the outcome of that .?????????

 

Found a picture of the lock wire pliers usually six inch to nine is the standard size , just in case anyone hasn't seen a pair , handy tool .