New Instrument Pod

[Alan Coats]

I finished making my instrument pod and brackets for it, and I took pictures of it being test-fit on my Bee.

Now that I know it all fits, I can put the final coat of paint on it.

The blank space on the bottom of the panel will get an altimeter and rotor tack.

Alan

[Alan Coats]

I forgot to hit the "Upload" button. I'll try again.

Alan

[gyropilot]

Alan,

Did you make the supports, or did they come with the pod?

Looks very nice!

Thanks,

John L.

[Alan Coats]

Thanks,

I made the pod and the brackets myself. The pod is fiberglass that was laid up over a styrofoam form. The brackets are 1/8" 6061T6. I polished them with some stuff that is supposed to protect the aluminum. I'll see how long it stays shiny.

Alan

[Alan Coats]

Thanks, John.

I made the pod and the brackets myself. The pod is fiberglass that was laid up over a styrofoam form. The brackets are 1/8" 6061T6. I polished them with some stuff that is supposed to protect the aluminum. I'll see how long it stays shiny.

The panel is some crinkle finish plastic I got at the local auto sound system store.

Alan

[scottessex]

Looks good!

[RotoTony]

Good job on the pod! Looks like something you would buy.
Tony

[Screw]

Screw-In

Great job! Looks good.

Screw-Out

[chuter]

Very nice Alan!

[Alan Coats]

Thanks, guys.

I thought that maiking my own pod was one way I could safely save some money.

Alan

[Brian Jackson]

Alan, ya done good my friend! Nice shape, lightweight, cool mounting system... Curious how you formed the consistent radii in your brackets. Looks great.

Thanks,
Brian Jackson

[Alan Coats]

Thanks, Brian.

I clamped a piece of pipe in a vice and bent the aluminum over it by hand. The brackets were trimmed to length after they were bent.

I was surprised how easy it was to get them to match.

Alan

[Brian Jackson]

Thanks, Brian.

I clamped a piece of pipe in a vice and bent the aluminum over it by hand. The brackets were trimmed to length after they were bent.

I was surprised how easy it was to get them to match.

Alan
...and the drilling was done after the forming. Nice. I was thinking reverse order. Man I swear I learn more here in one day than I ever could at a shop staffed by PEs :D Thanks Alan. I'll tuck that one away for future reference.

Isn't it amazing what artistry can be accomplished on a low budget? Hell, intricate clocks were built centuries before CNC machines. Somehow little by little, artisanship is being "chipped away" (forgive the pun), yielding to economics, until it's suddenly a lost art; not worth pursuing because it doesn't pay enough and costs too much. Well I work in the Virtual Reality/CNC/Visualization labs at a leading appliance manufacturer whom has a hard-on for innovative design and sexy geometry. It's funny that what you did with styrofoam and sandpaper may have cost us thousands to produce. I love the spirit of innovation, especially when ingenuity is a player! :) You encourage guys like us.

Thanks,
Brian Jackson

[banaari]

Hi Alan,
That's a bloody nice piece of craftsmanship. :)

I'm about to start on my own pod, same method - the combination of stuff I want on the panel just won't fit in the standard commercial offerings. So... a couple of questions for you:

- Is the yellow colour in the gelcoat, or did you paint it?
- If you laid it up over a male mould, are/were there any issues with the smoothness of the finish on the exterior?
- I'm a complete fibreglass newbie - could you be persuaded to describe the entire process step-by-step?


thanks in advance,
John

[bhenders]

Alan: great job! Looking forward to hearing of your first flight in the Bee.

[Alan Coats]

John,

Thanks for the compliment.

When I got the Bee it had already been painted with Rustoleum, so that is what I used on the instrument pod, straight out of the rattle can.

I did lay it up over a plug, and yes it took some effort to get the surface smooth, like I knew it would. I just sanded off the high spots and filled the low spots with a putty made from micro balloons and resin. The I repeated the previous step, then I repeated the previous step...

The fiberglass and resin I used were standard auto parts store stuff.

There are lots of sites on the net where you can get a better write-up than I can do, complete with pictures, but try to give you the highlights.

The first step was to cut a piece of plywood to the shape I wanted the panel to be. I then attached that to a board clamped onto the keel of the Bee, and adjused it till I got the angle I wanted for the face.

Then I cut a horizontal former to the shape I wanted for the top view of the pod, and attached it to the first piece at the angle I wanted, centered vertically.

Then I cut chunks of styrofoam packing material and glued them to the back of the panel shape on top of and below the horizontal former. I then "cut away all the parts that didn't look like an instrument pod" with a hand saw and then sanded it to the final shape on the belt sander.

After I had the shape I wanted I wrapped the whole thing with packing tape, so the resin wouldn't stick to it. Then I laid a layer of fiberglass over the form and brushed resin onto it. After the resin dried I sanded off the high spots, then laid on another layer of glass.

Tha't when all the sanding and filling began. It really wasn't hard to get it smooth - it just took patience.

Then came the part I had been worrying about - pulling the plug out of the inside of the pod.

After I got the plug out I seperated the panel shaped piece from the horizontal former and cut a big hole in the center of it. I then put the panel shaped piece back in place in the pod, then reached inside the hole and built up a fillet around the inside with resin/micro balloon putty, to make a seat for the panel.

Well, I'm better at doing it than explaining it, but maybe that will give you some ideas.

Feel free to ask any questions you might have,
Alan

Alan

[Alan Coats]

Alan: great job! Looking forward to hearing of your first flight in the Bee.


Thanks, Bob.

The flying lessons have been on hold till warmer weather, so it will be a while.

Also, my son and I (the one you met) have been buiding an addition onto his house, adding a den, a bedroom and a bathroom. We have to get it done before their baby arrives, so that project should be done in a couple of months.

I'll keep you posted.

Alan

[banaari]

Thanks for an excellent write up Alan, that answers everything I'd thought of and a couple of things I hadn't. The weekend looks promising. :)
cheers,
John

[CLS447]

It sure sounds like alot of work. I may be trying to make a small nosepod myself, so thanks for the info!

[Alan Coats]

Chris,

It did take some time, but I spread the work out over a week, so it wasn't too bad. Since my Bee was mostly built when I got it, I needed a chance to put some of my own creativity into it. I had all the materials on hand, so there was no cost involved, and I found the results to be very rewarding.

Like I said, there are several sites I found on the net that explain the process more clearly and in more detail than I could do.

Alan

[Timchick]

Alan, I think what some people are wondering is how much would you charge to make another one?

[Alan Coats]

Tim,

That's flattering, but I don't have the time to work on my own machine, let alone build for others. It would be expensive to do it the way I did it. That method is only good for one-off hand-made stuff.

Alan

[Red Sky]

Sure looks smart. I just wish you'd taken some pictures, that would have made for a nice tight article on home building. That's something all you guys could do to help out us newbies.

Don

[Alan Coats]

Don,

I agree about the photos. I am a newbee myself, and frequently ask for photos. You'd think that someone who had a photography business for 20 years would have taken construction pictures!

When I started out, I didn't know how it would turn out, and there are so many people on this forum who are so talented and so experienced that I didn't really think I would have any thing to add to the information pool.

I'll see if I still have the plug and will post pictures of it if I do.

Alan

[Red Sky]

Please do post them. How much do you have left before you get your 'bee in the air? Are you driving down for the meetings each month in OKC?

[banaari]

If it's any help (and it may well not be!!) I'm in the process of building my pod at the moment, following pretty much the process described by Alan. Ongoing photos on my homepage. Hopefully tonight I start attacking the polystyrene.
cheers,
John

[Friendly]

yes Allen could you start a new thread Titled 'Fiberglass Pod 101' with lots of pictures step by step.

[banaari]

Found this link:
http://club.cycom.co.uk/hotwire/Hot_wire_cutter_for_polystyrene_foam.html

[Alan Coats]

Here are a couple of pictures showing the foam plug and the plywood pieces used to define its shape. It is still wrapped in packing tape, but the front piece of plywood has been cut apart from the rest of the plug then put back for these photos.

Alan

[Alan Coats]

Here is a photo showing the edge of the plug where it joins to the front panel piece. You can see the the plywood is a little wider than the foam. This was done to create a step for the panel to sit against.

The other photo shows the inside of the pod. The seating surface for the panel was finished out by reaching inside the hole in the the panel piece and putting a fillet of micro-balloon/resin paste against the back of the panel piece, then pulling the panel piece off again after it had cured.

You can see a block of 1/4" plywood epoxied in place for one of the panel mouning screws to go into. On the end you can see where I sanded a flat spot and epoxied a 1/4" plwood disk in place for the pod mounting screw.

Alan

[banaari]

Alan - great stuff on the photos... I like your approach to building up the lip for the panel.
Hehe - I've just come up from the garage - some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on: Hacksawing polystyrene - it works really well, and it's a strangely satisfying sensation :)
I wound up buying a slab of wall insulation 40mm thick (they had to cut it into 4 sections so I could get it home) and I'm sort of building it up in laminations using PVA craft glue. The stuff sands beautifully too, using 150 grade.

[Brian Jackson]

John,
I'm likin' it bro! How are you planning to mount it? Similar to Alan's method? Anxious to see the finished product. Thanks for sharing the pix.

Brian

[banaari]

Thanks for the kind words! Some sort of aluminium strut - I'm contemplating thickening the underside (which is flat) to support mount points, radio antenna and pitot/static tubes. We'll see...
cheers, John

[Brian Jackson]

Cool. Can't wait to see it mounted. By the way, which CAD program did you use for the wireframe? I'm working on something similar for my Bee; a composite "sculpted" look that's complimentary to the QB tail geometry, but extremely light like you're doing. I hear ya' when it comes to that "strangely satisfying sensation". To see & touch a physical manifestation of something you've only dreamt about is a strange and rewarding feeling indeed. Makes me feel sorry for all the poor chaps who've never heard about gyros :D . I can't imagine throwing my heart and soul into anything else.

Keep us posted!
Brian

[Alan Coats]

John,

You might want to consider molding some thin plywood into the bottom of you pod, for mounting points.

Alan

[banaari]

Alan - thanks for the tip, that looks like a runner. I suspect I'm also going to have to include a foil ground-plane for the antenna in the layup.

Brian - I'm using Proge CAD LT, via Tucows, which seems to be an AutoCAD workalike. I want to get the pod finished before the tail arrives from StarBee so I can dispatch them together to a competent paint shop. Virulent (pustulent?!) dayglo blaze orange. :)

[Brian Jackson]

Day-glo orange? Holy-retina-scan-Batman! Add a little deer feremone to your exhaust & you'll confuse the hell out of hunters and deer alike :D

Hey, I revisited your site today and was most impressed by your exhaust layout photos. I didn't realize the exhaust system came as individual "LEGO" pieces. I did note your comments about having the ceramic application done. Are they anything like These Guys (http://www.airborncoatings.com/customer/index3.html)? They did a chrome Rotax exhaust for a member here that knocked my socks off. The results were amazing. I haven't seen it in person though, just through photos.

[Alan Coats]

I recently saw a Rotax that had the exhaust powder-coated in silver. Not quite as flashy as chrome, but it looked really nice. The owner said the finish had lasted through many hours of flying. I will sure consider it when I get a chance to pull my exhaust off for refinishing.

Alan

[banaari]

Yep, that looks like the same process - aluminised ceramics of some sort. And compared to the cost of the engine, it's peanuts... the local outfit will do what they describe as a "2-into-1" go-kart exhaust for ~US$90.

Current photos... that strange lump of polystyrene in the last photo is there to fill in the last little gap.
More cutting & sanding in the a.m. :)

John

[Alan Coats]

That's looking good. You shop probably looks like a snowstorm hit it. Have you tried using a Sureform file for the rough shaping? I used a hand saw to whack off the high spots, then shaped it on the belt sander.

Alan

[Brian Jackson]

John,
Man that's sweet. Nice work with the station sections/templates. I like how you contoured the shape resultant of the depth limits of your instrumentation. I'm a nut for "form follows function" but always seeking "grace and style." Blending the two mindsets is a real art.

Brian Jackson

[banaari]

Would probably have been easier using a Sureform, but I haven't got one... I did think about it, though... but I'm really trying to resist buying one-off-use tools. Used a hacksaw and 150 grade sandpaper (not 400 as posted earlier). And yeah, snowstorm's about right. I've got a small hand-held vacuum cleaner... it gave up the ghost this afternoon with clogged filters. :D
Hehe - the real breakthrough in the shaping was when I quit using the cardboard test jig, and just took to the thing aggressively in long swipes to feather the ridges into each other.

The dominant factor in the whole pod is the durn radio - it's long, and it's got to be kept away from both the compass and the engine monitor - which is why it's off to one side... and why the pod is so deep in front.

Challenge for this afternoon - similar to Alan's, there's a lip to support the panel... how best to form it... see photos for sheer deviousness. I intend to form a couple of additional support braces using the same technique.

Yet more sanding to come & some strategic use of fairing compound.

[Red Sky]

Very nice! Just melt away what you don't need. 1:43 AM? :eek: You're as bad as me! So, were you up that late working or just couldn't wait to post the pictures? :rolleyes:

Can't wait to see the finished product.
Don

[banaari]

It's incredibly effective - just sink the loop into the foam and drag - and up comes a neat square strip of foam cut out of the trench.
Ha! The timestamp on the messages shows up in your local time... no matter where they were sent from, and it was only 8:43pm here. :)

[banaari]

Got the first layer (and some patches) of glass on the pod tonight - what a blast! Cloth that just doesn't want to cooperate when dry suddenly clings willingly to impossible contours when wet - just like a T-shirt. :D :D

The packing tape's covering patches of fairing compound... and the trench I dug for the lip... have aborted that approach, going to go with the Alan technique and do it afterwards.

Tomorrow, we sand...

[witweew]

yeah, well there plenty of free podcasts or whatever on the internet that are supposedly "designed" for
workouts, but remember -- you get what you pay for -- the creators of these podcasts have to rely
on "free" music...... they can't license real hits, they could never afford to .... if you look :typing:
carefully at the playlists, you'll realize they are all either outdated techno from back in the 90's,
or they are really "underground" (i.e. terribly, terribly boring) tracks, with just a beat going :laser:
forever until u want to kill yourself -- ....

If you want something that's really going to get you motivated and keep you motivated... :yo:
I recommend the "Euro Club Hits" series -- it's on iTunes -- you can just search for it,
or try this link: :plane:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/advancedSearchResults?albumTerm=Euro+Club+Hits+Vol +

[animal]

yeah, well there plenty of free podcasts or whatever on the internet that are supposedly "designed" for
workouts, but remember -- you get what you pay for -- the creators of these podcasts have to rely
on "free" music...... they can't license real hits, they could never afford to .... if you look :typing:
carefully at the playlists, you'll realize they are all either outdated techno from back in the 90's,
or they are really "underground" (i.e. terribly, terribly boring) tracks, with just a beat going :laser:
forever until u want to kill yourself -- ....

If you want something that's really going to get you motivated and keep you motivated... :yo:
I recommend the "Euro Club Hits" series -- it's on iTunes -- you can just search for it,
or try this link: :plane:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/advancedSearchResults?albumTerm=Euro+Club+Hits+Vol +

Are you just a moron that did not read what this is about?

it is about Insterment pods for a gyroplane. not some stupid music podcast.
this thread has nothing to do with Ipods or pod casts.