Helpful Hints For Homebuilders Our hats are off to the gentlemen who mitted the following helpful hints and we that we had enough of those AC Spark Tips of the Month Certificates to issue to and every one.

subwish Plug each

We know this additional feature in SPORT AVIATION will be well accepted and of great help to the membership. So, if you have any hints send them in to Headquarters. This month EAA Indi-

CLEANING ENGINE PARTS

By Carl H. Buecker

vidual Achievement Certificates will be sent to the following: Carl H. Buecker, Ft. Wayne, Ind. Bernard J. Schnakowski, Syracuse, N.Y.

Palmer Johnson, Salem, Oreg. Jack C. Cummings, Otis AFB, Mass. T. R. Roddy, Rockwood, Tenn.

W. H. Hadley, East Lansing, Mich. Robert A. Greimerl, Danvers, Mass. Joe Kirk, Rockford, III. Raymond Sippel, Elmsford, N.Y.

JIG TO TRUE UP LEADING EDGE & NOSE SECTION

6603 Coldwater Rd., Ft. Wayne, Ind. The job of cleaning engine parts during overhaul with facilities available at home is not an easy one. Vapor degreasers and gunk tanks are usually not standard household appliances. The result is the homebuilder has a real job on his hands when he wants to overhaul and clean up an engine. I was recently faced with this problem and after some experimentation, I tried Tide washday detergent. My wife had a large box of Tide and I made generous use of it. I placed the parts in a pan, poured in plenty of Tide and added just enough water to cover the parts. This saturated solution will clean many parts at room temperature if allowed to stand 12 to 24 hrs. To speed the process and for parts having heavy carbonized deposits, place the pan on the stove at low heat (140 deg. to 160 deg. F). Two to four hours at elevated temperature will nicely clean pretty rough looking parts. If they don't come out quite clean give them more time or increase the temperature a little. Crusty aluminum pistons come out shining like a new dime. There is no etching of the aluminum. Steel parts clean up nicely too. Brushing the parts with an ordinary scrub brush and washing in clean hot water, then drying and oiling completes the job.

JIG TO TRUE TRAILING EDGE

LEADING EDGE JIG

By W. H. Hadley, EAA 3511 2690 Heather Dr., East Lansing, Mich. The leading edge jig and nose trueing jig was made by me in order that I could true up all the ribs on the EAA Biplane that I am building. First, I made short pieces of spars and put all the ribs for one wing on them in order to hold my ribs firm. Second, I made two templates out of masonite of the nose section of the rib from the front of the front spar to the leading edge. Third, I made a short piece of leading edge and screwed this between the two templates. Fourth, I put the ribs in a vise and filed down the cap strips to line up with the templates. In this way all the nose sections are even and in line. For the trailing edge jig I used scrap pieces of white pine 1 in. thick and as you can see by the drawing I cut

one end of the template off about 3 to 4 in. from the tip of the rib. Alongside of each template I nailed a % by % in. piece of wood, and across the top of the templates I nailed two pieces of Vz by % stock. The distance between templates equaled the width of nine ribs. I then nailed the template to my work bench and slid my ribs on and filed across the cap strips and squared off the ends of the ribs. I trust that this idea of mine will be useful to someone trying to figure out a way to true up his ribs as I did a lot of monkeying around with a lot of Rube Goldberg ideas before I hit on this one. • • • • (Continued en page 34) SPORT AVIATION

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