A new Carbon Cub builder has (as usual) a few questions...

[Mark W]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post a new builder.

I have begun reading the manual and planning tool purchases, shop layout and all of the other set up activities.

I have a specific question and a general question.

The specific question is what publications did you find were really useful during your build? The build manual lists four. Are they duplicative or do they all represent different sets of information? Were there others that would also be useful?

My second question is more general. It is "What single thing do you wish you had done differently in your build?". Any and all responses would be welcome.

If there is already a thread about this kind of stuff please lead me to it .

Thanks.

Mark

[Dan L]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post a new builder.

I have begun reading the manual and planning tool purchases, shop layout and all of the other set up activities.

I have a specific question and a general question.

The specific question is what publications did you find were really useful during your build? The build manual lists four. Are they duplicative or do they all represent different sets of information? Were there others that would also be useful?

My second question is more general. It is "What single thing do you wish you had done differently in your build?". Any and all responses would be welcome.

If there is already a thread about this kind of stuff please lead me to it .

Thanks.

Mark

Mark, what are the four publications? I don't remember that in my manual. The one I'd recommend is the Poly Fiber manual. Unless the current manual covers more on fabric than it did when I built mine you'll want the PF manual.

After almost three years of flying mine there isn't much I'd change. I designed my own panel and I'd change a few things on switch and C/B positions. And I might go with a pod rather than an extended baggage.

It it is all fun. Congratulations on starting a great project.

[Mark W]

Mark, what are the four publications? I don't remember that in my manual. The one I'd recommend is the Poly Fiber manual. Unless the current manual covers more on fabric than it did when I built mine you'll want the PF manual.

After almost three years of flying mine there isn't much I'd change. I designed my own panel and I'd change a few things on switch and C/B positions. And I might go with a pod rather than an extended baggage.

It it is all fun. Congratulations on starting a great project.

Dan,

The four pubs are:

1. AC43.13 Acceptable Methods of Aircraft Repair
2. Aviation Maintenance Technician Handbook (AC65.9A)
3. A&P Airframe Handbook by FAA
4. A&P Airframe Textbook by Jeppesen

Thanks for your reply.

Mark

[tcwilliams]

I have used an IPAD. Both for pictures and notes.

[DRL]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post a new builder.

I have begun reading the manual and planning tool purchases, shop layout and all of the other set up activities.

I have a specific question and a general question.

The specific question is what publications did you find were really useful during your build? The build manual lists four. Are they duplicative or do they all represent different sets of information? Were there others that would also be useful?

My second question is more general. It is "What single thing do you wish you had done differently in your build?". Any and all responses would be welcome.

If there is already a thread about this kind of stuff please lead me to it .

Thanks.

Mark

Hi Mark,

We put the finishing touches on ours today and we plan our first flight on Monday. It took us three years, but that is another story. My recommendation is get as many pictures as possible. Mitch has a great collection in the dropbox, we took pictures of every Carbon Cub we saw that came by Camarillo and while at Oshkosh. There are a few builder's logs on the internet that are very helpful. You just can't have enough pictures.

Don't cut or drill anything unless you are absolutely sure it's the right thing to do, and then don't do it... go to lunch and think about it. Read everything twice and maybe once more just before you make an irrevocable decision. If all else fails call CubCrafters, they have more parts. The windshield should be kept in a cold dark place until you are ready to cut it, we stored ours for two and half years at the top of a hot hangar, it was dried out when we started hacking at it. The second windshield went much better using a dremel multi-saw with a blade for plastic and carefully drilling with a uni-bit. Getting the windshield cut correctly is essential to fitting it to airframe. One other gotcha is pulling the number one rib out of alignment while shrinking the fabric, easy to do, and nothing will fit correctly thereafter, glass, trim etc. This is also the case with the boot cowl, other things you can recover from without too much pain. We had one "save" when we caught an aileron bracket mounted wrong on the spar cap before cover, so every little thing is important.

Probably our number one mistake was painting, wrong paint, wrong place and definitely the wrong painter. There is another post here that documents that odyssey. Organizing parts will save you a lot of time, even though CubCrafters' boxes are great, we found that making kits for a particular task with just the things you need to do it, and then put in "the no one else touch this box" works well. Ours was a group effort, you may not have this problem.

For tools, I would recommend a pneumatic rivet puller, Harbor Freight's will work, a good riv-nut puller not HF and a good set of riveting tools. Even though this is a tube and fabric airplane, there are a lot of rivets. Don't settle for a bad rivet, when in doubt drill it out. Use particular care with the leading edge skins, a dent here will never get better.

If you are creative and decide to customize, figure it will take you three time longer to do it than staying with the plan. We built our own panel with Dynon's 10" Skyview, ADS-B etc. and using My Panel (less radios) for the basic things. We also put in a third set of window comparable to the L21. This gives us good visibility to the rear and as a side benefit we can see all the oily rags and cans on the rear shelf. When you are building with someone else you do not always get it your way.

We were going to limit the weight to 1320, but for a variety of reasons we decided for 1865, the empty weight was 958 which I guess is fairly light for the EX. The DAR was Adam Valdez from the Bakersfield area, he is very thorough, he only found one overtightened pulley and a wire that needed more chafe. So with his autograph we are good to go.

Good luck with your build, ask a lot of questions, read the forums, there are a lot of EX builders with experience and of course Mitch is the guru if we can't help you out

Dave

[Mark W]

Hi Mark,

We put the finishing touches on ours today and we plan our first flight on Monday. It took us three years, but that is another story. My recommendation is get as many pictures as possible. Mitch has a great collection in the dropbox, we took pictures of every Carbon Cub we saw that came by Camarillo and while at Oshkosh. There are a few builder's logs on the internet that are very helpful. You just can't have enough pictures.

Don't cut or drill anything unless you are absolutely sure it's the right thing to do, and then don't do it... go to lunch and think about it. Read everything twice and maybe once more just before you make an irrevocable decision. If all else fails call CubCrafters, they have more parts. The windshield should be kept in a cold dark place until you are ready to cut it, we stored ours for two and half years at the top of a hot hangar, it was dried out when we started hacking at it. The second windshield went much better using a dremel multi-saw with a blade for plastic and carefully drilling with a uni-bit. Getting the windshield cut correctly is essential to fitting it to airframe. One other gotcha is pulling the number one rib out of alignment while shrinking the fabric, easy to do, and nothing will fit correctly thereafter, glass, trim etc. This is also the case with the boot cowl, other things you can recover from without too much pain. We had one "save" when we caught an aileron bracket mounted wrong on the spar cap before cover, so every little thing is important.

Probably our number one mistake was painting, wrong paint, wrong place and definitely the wrong painter. There is another post here that documents that odyssey. Organizing parts will save you a lot of time, even though CubCrafters' boxes are great, we found that making kits for a particular task with just the things you need to do it, and then put in "the no one else touch this box" works well. Ours was a group effort, you may not have this problem.

For tools, I would recommend a pneumatic rivet puller, Harbor Freight's will work, a good riv-nut puller not HF and a good set of riveting tools. Even though this is a tube and fabric airplane, there are a lot of rivets. Don't settle for a bad rivet, when in doubt drill it out. Use particular care with the leading edge skins, a dent here will never get better.

If you are creative and decide to customize, figure it will take you three time longer to do it than staying with the plan. We built our own panel with Dynon's 10" Skyview, ADS-B etc. and using My Panel (less radios) for the basic things. We also put in a third set of window comparable to the L21. This gives us good visibility to the rear and as a side benefit we can see all the oily rags and cans on the rear shelf. When you are building with someone else you do not always get it your way.

We were going to limit the weight to 1320, but for a variety of reasons we decided for 1865, the empty weight was 958 which I guess is fairly light for the EX. The DAR was Adam Valdez from the Bakersfield area, he is very thorough, he only found one overtightened pulley and a wire that needed more chafe. So with his autograph we are good to go.

Good luck with your build, ask a lot of questions, read the forums, there are a lot of EX builders with experience and of course Mitch is the guru if we can't help you out

Dave

Dave,

Thanks for your long and informative post.

I am sure that I will have a million questions so it is good that there is a strong forum like this one.

Mark

[Paul]

Mark, I'm simply going with an Excel spread sheet for logging my time and I upload all my photos to Dropbox. I've identified every entry by section, part, L/R and that's made it easy to sort.

I've also made notations in my manual (the original hard copy that came with the kit). But be sure to refer to the updated version that Mitch saves to Dropbox.

Having an iPad in your shop like TC suggested is ideal for enlarging details. I even on occasion enlarged a detail to scale to check dimensions for placement etc.

[Mark W]

Mark, I'm simply going with an Excel spread sheet for logging my time and I upload all my photos to Dropbox. I've identified every entry by section, part, L/R and that's made it easy to sort.

I've also made notations in my manual (the original hard copy that came with the kit). But be sure to refer to the updated version that Mitch saves to Dropbox.

Having an iPad in your shop like TC suggested is ideal for enlarging details. I even on occasion enlarged a detail to scale to check dimensions for placement etc.

Thanks Paul. I will certainly have at least an iPad in my shop.

[clipwingcub]

I agree with Dan on getting a copy of the poly fibre manual, and would download copies of 43.13-1b and 2b from the FAA website if you don't already have. Congratulations and best luck.........tony


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[tcwilliams]

I agree with Dan on getting a copy of the poly fibre manual, and would download copies of 43.13-1b and 2b from the FAA website if you don't already have. Congratulations and best luck.........tony


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Just got my paint area ready to go. I started mine in mid Dec. and am ready to start spraying. Be happy to talk as everything is pretty fresh at this point. 330-727-0043. Feel free to call.