Last 2 Spars Routed

 The process for routing the spars worked very well.  It's worth going back and looking at the other posts.

The First One covers the guides and basic method used.

The Second One is about the much needed dust collector.

The Third One is about planing and sanding the routed surfaces.

By the time I did these last 2 spars I had forgotten what I did.  Fortunately I had these old posts to remind me how I did it.

I used the ShopSmith as my work table with roller stands to hold the spar flat.  Fortunately my attic is 44 feet long so I have room to slide the long (15') spars in either direction.

On the first spar I forgot to lightly cross clamp the guides to the spar.  The spar started sliding with the force of pushing the router.  The cross clamps also assure the guides don't move away from the spar, so you get a very straight edge.

The vacuum hose for collecting saw dust has to be positioned so it doesn't stop the router because the hose snags on everything.  I hung it from a nail by one of my skylights.

The routing itself goes pretty easy with slow steady motion, not across the grain.  Across the grain makes a deeper cut than with the grain.  WEAR EAR PROTECTION, it's noisy.  I use my Bose headset which I wear all day in the embroidery shop.

I used 2 drill bits, 1/64" smaller than the desired cut depth, with a straight edge to set how far the router bit protrudes beyond the base.  There's a picture in the first post.

The piece of 2x4 with the corners routed to 3/8" worked very well for sanding the rear spars.

Along with the 150 grit Sandblaster I bought some 80 grit.  It worked very well for the first pass on the rear spars, where I couldn't use the block plane or my rubber sanding blocks.

The last 2 spars are done.  How cool is that?

Finished Drilling 2 Rear Spars

 

The attic is a bit crowded with the fuselage in there.  I should have turned the ShopSmith so the working side was on the left, where I had more room.  Hey it worked the holes are drilled and I'm ready to route the spars.

I only use the template to locate the drill, clamp the spar to the table, recheck the location, then move the template aside while drilling.  It's slow but the holes line up perfect.