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Bending the HS-410 - advice please!

Steve Sampson

Well Known Member
I soon have to bend the HS-410. (That is the bit that connects the HS to the VS.) I would really welcome people's ideas as to how to do this. I am concerned it would be all too easy to damage the front spar in the process.

Thanks,
 
HI Steve,,, I've only done this recently (july). This is one of the monster, everyone is scared of. Its really easy.. get yourself a pitch and angle locator,,, clamp the piece in your vice, put the locator on it and bend to angle required in the plans.

good luck

Mike
 
Bending

Hi Steve
I clamped HS-410 over the edge of my work bench with two large clamps and made the angle with a large rubber hammer. This method performed great! I produce this angle before I assembled the horizontal stab.
 
Bending the HS-410

The prior posts were correct. There's not really that much to it. Just make the bend in small steps (I used rubber hammer) until you get the correct angle. In the worst case you can just order another one - they are fairly inexpensive. It took me a second try to get it just the way I wanted it!
Today I used that old scrap "practice" HS-410 as stock material for the construction of the rudder stops on the fuselage.
Later on the replacement parts get more expensive. I must admit ordering two or three of certain parts that I just couldn't seem to get right on the first, second or even third try!

Al Thomas
N880AT (Reserved)
RV-8A QB - fuselage
 
HS-410 Advice please!

Perhaps my mistake was to follow the plans? It sounds as though ALL of you did this step BEFORE assembling the HS? My HS is assembled and I am trying to do it (or will be ) with the structure completed. Scary!
 
Call Vans. I've been to your website and your Emp. is completely finished....you're just about to attach the VS to the emp/fuselage. You couldn't possibly have gotten this far without making the bend that these guys are talking about. There must be some additional tweaking you need to do on a -4 to make it fit properly.

IMHO, of course :)
 
Just following the plans!

John - if you read the plans this is when VANS say to do it. See p8-8 half way down. Not saying that is right, just what they say.

Cheers, Steve.
 
I think the bend these guys are talking about is the bend to match the HS front spar sweep (when originally assembling the HS). There's just no way you were able to assemble the HS without making this bend already, I don't think. And if you were to somehow have assembled it like that, how could you possibly make that bend now without shearing all of the rivets in the HS? I'm just very confused now trying to figure this out. That's why I think we're talking about 2 different bends here.

I love little mysteries like this... :D
 
Which Bend?

Steve,
I'm only now finishing my emp kit and I haven't looked ahead to attachment of the vertical. HS-410 is the "T"-shaped (12"x5 1/4") piece that 3-way attaches the forward spars of both HS and VS, right? Are you saying you need to bend the vertical part to meet the VS?
 
I haven't seen a -4 in years so I've been going off of memory but I seemed to recall there was a little joggle in that piece to fit the VS (looked funny and stuck out in my mind...I assumed at the time it just came like that). I think that's the bend we're talking about here. I think the other guys are building -7s and -8s like I was, and there's a piece HS-710 that's different and has a different bend in it. I think that's what they're talking about.

Maybe I'm just loosing it. Too much nicotine and oxidants etc in my blood is making my memory go soft! :eek:
 
HS-410

WSBuilder said:
Steve,
I'm only now finishing my emp kit and I haven't looked ahead to attachment of the vertical. HS-410 is the "T"-shaped (12"x5 1/4") piece that 3-way attaches the forward spars of both HS and VS, right? Are you saying you need to bend the vertical part to meet the VS?

Yes, if you look at the aft fuse plan that shows the connect of the VS to the HS and the middle of p8-8 you will see that you have to bend the HS-410 (the top of the inverted 'T') about 20 deg to line up with the forward spar of the VS. It would be better done before you rivet the HS-410 to anything, but in the plans they dont tell you to do this until you are mounting the HS and VS on the fuse.

My question was how people thought this was best done at this late stage. I think most of the answers are from people who realised they should do it much earlier than stated in the plans. It is not an impossible task, but is going to require careful jiggingof the HS.
 
Bending Jig

Steve,
I've emailed you a powerpoint drawing of an in-place bending jig that I think would work.
 
Steve Sampson said:
I soon have to bend the HS-410. (That is the bit that connects the HS to the VS.) I would really welcome people's ideas as to how to do this. I am concerned it would be all too easy to damage the front spar in the process.

Thanks,

Steve.....clamp a piece of wood to the spar (something stiff) and then bend the tang to the required angle. Just make sure that everything is clamped and that the spar is stiff (can't twist) and it will go fine.....
 
HS-410

Thanks for all the advice. I think I caused some confusion perhaps as to what i was talking about so I have put apicture here . I will also place a picture of how I jigged it when that is done.
 
You talk about this, right?

dsc05797.jpg


I did it this way: First clamp the whole portion of the spar that has to stay unbent with wood layers on every side in a vise (support the whole stabilizer of course), then clamp the portion to be bent with wood on each side as well and bend it. I simply pulled on the 2 (rather big) clamps. It worked well. I think you have to make the bent after you completed the VS/HS on final (OK, nothing is final here :eek:)) assembly. As you can see, I had to put a spacer between the two parts (showed untrimmed). Good luck! Dirk
 
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