Brodhead Pietenpol Association

Original Posted By: "Skip Gadd"
Fellow Piet Builders and mentorsWe are starting to glue in the braces between our fuselage sides and havenoticed, in many build photos, that other builders have chiselled away thefirst front brace.Both ends, where they meet the longeron. What is the purpose of doing this?captmarcus(at)sympatico.ca________________________________________________________________________________

Original Posted By: Marc Dumay
Fellow Piet Builders and mentorsWell, seeing as that is my picture you have attached I guess I should explain why I tapered the ends. Drawing No 1 drawing entitled "Bottom Plan View of Fuselage", shows the two ash cross braceses as 3/4-inch by 2-inch white ash. However, Drawing No 3 "Bottom of Fuselage" shows the front to be 2-inch by 1-inch white ash inside cross strut taper to 2-inch by 3/4-inch at end. This is also shown on the "Sectional View of Left Front Fitting"".At first I installed the ash cross brace as a 1-inch thick piece and later discovered it was supposed to taper on the ends. I had to do it after I glued it in but it wasn't to hard. It helps to have the ends taper so the inner fitting will line up with the outer gear fitting. Chris TracySacramento, CaWebsite at http://www.WestCoastPiet.com ----- Original Message -----

Original Posted By: Ryan Michals
Fellow Piet Builders and mentors We are starting to glue in the braces between our fuselage sides and havenoticed, in many build photos, that other builders have chiselled away thefirst front brace. Both ends, where they meet the longeron. What is the purpose of doing this? captmarcus(at)sympatico.ca________________________________________________________________________________Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:40:28 -0800 (PST)

Original Posted By: "Cuy, Michael D. (GRC-RXD0)[ASRC]"

Original Posted By: "Bill Church"

Original Posted By: Michael Groah
I came to the same conclusion after I had tapered the ends (which I think is confirmedby Jeff's pictures). The only problem I see with not tapering the endswould be the bolt holes have to be rather high up the fuselage side to makesufficient clearance for the bend radius and bolt heads. I ended up not runningthe bolts through the longeron, as seen in the drawing posted by Mike, butrather ran them just above it. I added some filler blocks for them to go through.(Which reminds me, I better check to see if I remembered to add the blocks). Because of this, my outer fittings needed to be taller then shown on theplans making the bolts farther away from the strap for the wing strut. I wasconcerned that having the bolts spread out farther the fitting might be morelikely to pull out away from the fuselage. However, with the additional boltson the lower strap for the cross brace wire (wood gear) I think this extra lengthhas been taken care of. One other thing, the clearance between the boltheads going through the sides and the ones going through the floor is really close.I should have given then a little more room.Chris--------Chris TracyWestCoastPiet.comRead this topic online here:http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.p ... ______Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:29:25 -0800 (PST)

Original Posted By: "KMHeide, BA, CPO, FAAOP"