;)
Given the age of the home, it is in very good shape. The foundation shows almost no evidence of settling. The brickwork is largely in good shape. The timber structure only has a few places where moisture damage is evident.
That's not to say that there is nothing to be done. Although the home has a new roof now, leaking and subsequent staining led the prior owners to cover portions of the plaster with drywall. We are taking a room at a time approach to restoring the original plaster.
Most of the original storm windows are gone. These were arch topped just like the primary windows and have a seamless look. Most were replaced with cheap aluminum storm windows. These really destroy the look of the home, and I seriously doubt that they perform as well as the original storms. I am making new storm windows to match the originals, and will be doing away with the aluminum units. The main windows will be treated with weatherstrip kits from Advanced Repair Technologies. The combination of original storm windows and tightly sealed main windows should perform nearly as well as new triple-pane windows, but for a fifth of the cost.
The sills of some of the windows have rotted or shrunk enough to allow moisture to enter the top of the brick. This has led to deterioration of the mortar under the windows (old lime mortars were responsible for wicking moisture from the surrounding brick and dissipating it into the air). We plan to repoint these areas as soon as possible.
A previous owner tried repointing the brick in one area at the back of the house. Unfortunately, they used modern portland cement based mortar, which caused the brick faces to spall off. Our repointing project will also involve replacing these bricks with ones from the stockpile that came with the house.
That's it for now. More as we dig into the restoration.
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( 3 / 110 )After finishing the rear spar last fall, the weather got too cold outside to work with the epoxy any longer. My wife is pregnant with boy #3, so I had been focusing on completing the extra bathroom, bedroom and family room that I was putting in the basement. We really need more space.
When the opportunity to get a larger home in the country recently presented itself, we jumped at it. The new house has a detached heated shop, a 55'x100' pole building that might make a good hangar, and enough land to have a 700' airstrip with clear approaches.
Unfortunately for the RW-11, I will be concentrating on finishing the renovations to our current home before the closing date. I am also hoping to get a new bathroom in the new house as well. Boy #3 is due in May. Don't expect to see anything here for a while.
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( 2.8 / 81 )I glued the top capstrip to the shear web for the rear spar.
1 hr
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( 2.9 / 49 )I cut out the root and spar attach filler blocks similar to those for the front spar. These were then glued to the shear web, along with the intercostals and the capstrip doublers.
2 hr
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( 2.8 / 36 )I ripped out the upper and lower capstrips, doublers and intercostals. The lower cap strip was then glued to shear web.
3 hr
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( 2.9 / 27 )I scarfed together the shear web for the rear spar. The rear spar has a significant change from plans - it is full depth. I simply couldn't get the required strength from the shallower spar.
2 hr
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( 2.8 / 24 )I pulled the clamps from the spar and removed it from the table to inspect it. With the exception of one small area (about 1 inch long out near the tip) I had glue squeeze out everywhere, generally forming a 1/8" fillet. It is also fun to start holding ribs up to it to start getting a scope of the wing size. To me, the spar is exceptionally straight - I can't spot much deviation in the bottom at all, even with a laser. It's hard to tell with the glue drips in the way, but the top has perhaps 1/32" - 1/16" sag along the entire length. That may go away as I plane off the glue drips. (Aug 8 note: after cleaning up the glue drips, the top looks as straight as the bottom)
The images below show the spar before a lite pass through the planer to clean off the excess glue.
1 hr
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( 3 / 20 )I glued the top capstrip, upper cap doubler, tip lower capstrip, and the strut attach filler block into the spar. This required a lot of glue and I had to be quick in the August heat so that I had the clamps in place before the glue started setting. I had opted to do this in one session because I didn't care for all the removal and cleanup of the glue fillets where another piece was to be attached. In the future, however, I will be doing the filler block and doubler in their own session apart from the cap. In my haste I forgot to wipe the excess glue from the inside fillets after everything was clamped up. That's a minor cosmetic bother I suppose, but a bother nonetheless.
The image at left shows the strut attach filler block after the weights and clamps were removed, but before the excess glue was cleaned up from the back face of the spar.
2 hr
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( 3 / 20 )I ripped the spar top capstrip. This had an approximately 10 degree angle on the top to match the airfoil profile. I also made the 1 inch top capstrip doubler. and the strut attach filler block. The strut attach filler block was tapered into the spars similar to the manner in which the root filler block was tapered.
Because of the angular sheared Horner tips, the top cap strip ended up being about 15" longer than the 12' board I had purchased. Although the loads in the cap strips at the tips would be minimal, I decided that the right thing to do would be to scarf on the additional 15" of top cap length. As the glue set on the cap extension, I cut the bottom cap for the tip region from 1/2" thick spar material.
3 hr
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( 2.9 / 16 )I ripped out some 1/4" strips from the 3/4" stock to create the spar intercostals. I also made the 1/2" lower spar cap doubler. With 12:1 tapers at the ends, the lower cap doubler was made just long enough to fill the two bays on either side of the strut attach point. By my calculations, this length was sufficient to encompass the moment envelope peak that occured there. The intercostal locations were carefully marked out, then the intercostals and lower cap doubler were glued into place.
2 hr
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( 3 / 20 )
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