Our Tools

Tools R us !

We thought we had all the tools we would ever need on this little venture but we were sadly mistaken.  Here's a list and some photos of tools we already had and ones we ended up buying so be sure you take all this into account when you jump into this or you like us will be eating pot pies and hot dogs before you know it lol.

Drill press Perfect 90 degrees are a must so if you have one now check it and be sure it's in good shape and the bed is level Gotta have it!!!!

Drill press vice Gotta have it!!!

Drill press clamp down set Gotta have it!!!

Cobalt Drill bit set Get a new set with the letter D size and all the other sizes. While your at it pick up about 5 each of  3/32  1/8  1/4  5/16  for spares and don't buy cheap bits.

Hole saws

2 Step hole bits 1/8 to 1/2 and another that goes from 1/2 to 1 inch Gotta have em!!!!!

Countersink bit

Electric drills Two would be nice to have preferably with keyless chucks because you'll be changing bits often.

Cordless drills 2 or 3 of these with keyless chucks would go along ways toward your patience and don't forget spare batteries lol. These things will spoil you in a hurry.

Buffing wheels and compound

Gotta have it if you want good looking parts!!

Punch set

Center punch set

Vise

This is must for sure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dremel rotary tool set

Gotta have this thing, it'll save you all kinds of work.

Large File set

Larger flat and round files........Gotta have em!!!!

Small file set

small micro files

gotta have em!!!!

Disk/Belt Sander

This thing is worth its weight in gold as it will save you countless hours of work and allow you to shape and grind things to perfection.

Sanding Belts

Sanding Disks

Electric Pad Sander......4 X 4

Gotta have it!!!!!

Profile sander

Not a fast cutting tool but makes sanding edges and contours a lot easier.

DA Sander

and Self stick sanding disks

We only used this for the seam when we split our tub to match up the seams.

Sanding Drums for our electric drill

Another Gotta Em !!!

Vacuum Cleaner Tube System

 to hook to our power tools.  It's very noisy but it makes the dust level tollerable.  We call it our hamster tubes because that what it looks like lol.

Sand blasting cabinet

this was a must for doing our own metal preperation

We Borrowed that lol.

Air compressor

It takes a big one to run a sandblasting cabinet.

Floor jack

for installing engine

Gotta have it !!!

Engine stand

we feel one in the future.

Band saw

Gotta have it and a good one to!!!!!.

Electric hand grinder

Gotta have it!!!!!!

The Fien Knife we used to cut our tub

Oxygen/acetylene Torch

We  needed one of these to bend a couple parts.

1/4 Drive socket set

3/8 Drive socket set

3 Torque Wrenchs

25-250 inch lbs

used throughout the ship

Torque Wrench...5-80lbs

used for the Main rotor blade bolts.............Gotta have it!!!!

Gotta Have Em All !!!

These are tools we made to be able to tork the cylender heads without having to remove

the valve rocker arms and

the L shaped one is used to check the tork on the intake manifild where it bolts to the cylinder heads

Clamps........big clamps......small calmps....bar clamps.......Gotta have em!!!

Dial indicator with a magnetic base attachment

Blade reflex measuring tool

Dial Indicator with magnetic base

This is supposed to be used in final rigging but we never did use it so save your money

Main rotor head centering tool

Tension Checker Tool

Blade Stand / Work lights.

We needed a blade stand so we just added a bracket to the top of our work light stand.

Tail Rotor Pitch Measuring Tool

Fly Wheel Turning Tool

This is what Rotorway tells you to use for turning the flywheel while your doing valve ajustments.

Unless your engine is out of the ship it's totally usless because there isnt enough room to turn the flywheel more then a few teeth at a time so save your money

unless you would like to buy ours and in that case it works breat and well give you such a deal lol.

This is a Cog Belt spreader tool It's used for working on the Cog Belt

This is another spreader tool used for tightning the fan belts on the ship.

Antifreeze jugs cut down to for catching the engine oil while were doing our valve ajustments

Spring Scales for Tensioning Belts

For checking the belt tension and Bias on the Cyclic control cables

AC to DC power source

for when we did our avionics installation and testing

Test light

Digital Ohm meter

If you buy one of theses be sure to get an audible one

E Clip Pliers We had to have these for assembling the tail rotor and the main rotor head also uses them

Safty Wire Pliers

Wire strippers

Small Side Cutters

Medium Side Cutters 

Electrical Crimping pliers for crimping terminal ends

You need three different kinds and for one of them you'll need to be on some good drugs when you buy it
because it costs about $300.00  LOL!

We got lucky here, a friend loaned us his.

gotta have it if you install avionics!!!

Soldering Gun 150 watt

Soldering pencil 12 watt

gotta have it if you install avionics!!!

Soldering pencil 25 watt

gotta have it if you install avionics!!!

Solder and Soldering Stand

gotta have it if you install avionics!!!

Heat Gun

We needed this for heating up the fiberglass body panels during the fitting process and during our wiring to shrink the heat shrink tubing plus a lot of other things

Gotta have it!!!!

4 Point Scale System to do your weight and balance with

Borrowed these also from a friend..........Thank God for friends!

Scale #1

Bath Room Scale

This was our bathroom scale until it got confiscated it for
Project Helicopter

Cheerfully donated by Mz Donna.

It was the first thing I ever liberated from the house I didn't get in trouble for,
Whats up with that lol.

Scale # 2

Electronic Baby

$ 50.00

0 to 44 pound range

for checking the tension on the tail rotor tool

measuring the weight of the ballast weight during construction

Ballast bags and misc. weights placed about the ship.

Gotta have it!!

Electronic Precision Scale # 3

We cheat and use one we already had that we use for reloading amunition

RCBS 10-10 Scale
$128.00
1,010 grain capacity with 0.1 grain sensitivity

for weighing small amounts of weights such as the ones on your tail rotor blades, main rotor blades

Hand Pop Rivet Gun Gotta have it!!!

Pneumatic Rivet Gun over 200 nut plates.......yup you'll buy one to lol.

Tin Snip

Aviation Shears left,right and center cutting Gotta have em!!!!

Power sheet metal shears Makes cutting the sheet metal bunches easier Gotta have em!!!!!!

Sheet metal bender Gotta have one!!!!

Metal hole punch gizmo really handy little thing.

Calipers Gotta have em!!!!

Telescope gauge set 1/2 to 6 inch. measures the distance within a gap like when setting up the main rotor blade straps.......you can get by without them but why would you want to.

We didn't  happen to have a perfectly level surface

to build our ship on so we ended up making this Floor Jig.
Its made from 6" U Channel and has 1" inch threaded rods that can be ajusted to make the ship level.

L Squares small and medium size Gotta have em

Levels Gotta Have Em !!!

These are actually part of a combination square

Squares, Circle Stencils 1/8 to 3 1/2 inches and a Compass Gotta have em

Plum-Bobs for when you setup the tailboom

We made these for finding hole centers on different things

such as the holes we made in the body to ajust the fuel sending unit with out having to remove a body panel and also for tracing out where to drill the holes when we mounted the body panels to the seatback.

Break cylinder hone

We had to have this to hone out the foot peddle castings and the spring tention tube on the swing arm assembly

gotta have it!!

Tap and die set

gotta have it !!!!!!

Nut Plate pattern for 8 X?

Nut Plate pattern Pattern for 3/16 X ?

Dzus Spring Pattern

Dzue Spring Ajustment tool

Dzue Button instalation Tool

This comes with the Rotorway Kit but it's not made fom very good metal, it had to be constently reshaped as you use it.

Syringes for applying Fiberglass Resign and Blade Glue

We used these to apply the blade glue to the rubber trim strips we bonded the landing gear pants and the rear panels where they meet the tail boom

Staple gun and a Glue Gun we used making several items

Sewing Machine

Label making machine

Gotta either have one or pay to have them made !!!

Work Mate work bench

2 Small ladders
at least 3 foot!!
Gotta Have em!!!!!

Roll around stool
easier on the back when working on low areas

Step stools 2  12"
 Step stool  1   24 inch

A real tall 6 shelf book cabinet

File cabinet

at least a 2 drawer model...........Gotta have it!!!!

Computer with large hard drive

Cad Software

for drawing electrical schematics n stuff

Camera for keeping up with your project.............FAA Requirement!!!

A Digital Camera is the best to go with because film pics are way to expensive and you can email your pics to others for help all for the price of batteries which are costly but not near the cost of film and processing. You folks that are buying cameras now days are lucky. You can get a digital camera now for about $150 bucks or less thats equlivant to the one we bought in 97 for $600.00 so no whining lol.

We took over 15,000 pics of our ships construction and experiences (and that doesn't even include the videos) lol.  We called one day to see what it would cost to have them printed and we got prices from $1.95 each to as low as 49 cents each on the web so film pictures are out for sure for us.

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