Toy plane

With travel coming up, I didn't want to start into a new part of the plane. Instead, the girls & I decided to make something out of the scrap spar I'd mangled. 

I wanted to try to make a toy with the girls' help that allowed them to do almost everything, each step of the way that mirrored the steps in actual plane construction. 

First we mocked up parts in cardboard, cutting them to the shape of the spar. 

Then we marked off cut/bend lines. Tape was a good stand-in for Clecos. 

We trimmed along the lines & bent the windscreen tabs inboard and down. 

Then we scored and bent the lower "cowling" tab up. 

A couple other pieces sketched, cut & secured, and we had our model!

Next up, I measured our reference points, and the girls connected the dots with a straight-edge and sharpie. 

Then both got a turn with aviation snips cutting on the lines. 

All our rough cut parts!

  I did all the deburring on the bench grinder to speed things up...kid attention spans are only so long. 

After making the initial bends for the fuselage, we Clecoed the assembly and marked the windscreen cut/bend lines. 

Being .032" aluminum, the bends were tough to get precise...thus our plane's "Elvis lip."

All parts ready for drilling!

Back in the garage we clamped the landing gear strut to the lower wing for match-drilling. 

Gear/LW Clecoed to the fuselage (seen near our unfinished rudder). 

Remember what I said about bending thicker aluminum? We ended up with less than ideal wing cant. Thankfully this is just a prototype. 

All pieces match-drilled and Clecoed!

We assembled the pieces one at a time using homeowner pop rivets (pulled rivets) that were very easy for the girls to install. 

Next we added the landing gear; a couple of matching buttons and some small gauge steel wire threaded thru:

Rollin'!

With the cardboard model; not bad for under-five construction

More power! Finally added a pipe cleaner propeller fastened with thread pulled through the fuselage & tied to the hole in the vertical stabilizer. 

I had fun with the girls, and it was great to see their confidence build as they worked on each step. Not long before we'll be putting them to work on the real thing!