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Building in 2 locations

Bartman14

I'm New Here
First post and first time builder. Awesome community here !
After researching the 10 and 14 on this and other sites and blogs for about 6 weeks I settled on building the 14A. Since I work week on week off I have the time, but the work location is in a different city about 100 miles away. Should have a good 10-14 days relatively uninterrupted at home every month, and a couple of hours most days while away. Looking at maximizing my time and thinking of buying two kit segments and working on the empennage while away and haul it back when completed, but do the big stuff at the main home. Completed segments will be stored and assembled in my hangar a few miles from the main home. I know I'll have some duplication of tools and workspace but many tools can be hauled back and forth. Excuse my ignorance, but is it reasonable to build the empennage and maybe other portions in a townhouse community away from the main home, or would I just be setting myself and the neighbors up for a bad experience with complaints like noise and such ?
 
It is a noisy, and dirty, process.

I have a shop 2 miles from my home hangar. I have a complete set of tools at the home hangar, but the shop has far more. I am constantly in need of a some odd ball tool that I left at the shop. A lot of back and forth.

Also, you want to minimize the amount of handling of your parts. You will see many posts here where folks dropped something while hauling it, or moving it.
 
In my opinion not practical. If I read correctly with the hangar you have three locations. The most efficient time spent on the project would be in the shop in your main house. While you surely can haul parts and tools to townhouse and back it’s a time consuming work without real work on airframe.

Spend your extra couple hours after major work researching and reading drawings, plan what task you accomplish next and accomplish it in two weeks. Study plans, deburr a bracket, crimp a thing or two, dream, if you stay on it every day expect your first flight in 1,000 days. Or a week earlier...

You can control dirt while building but you can’t control noise. I built my empennage in a small NYC studio apt and I had visitors after first dozen rivets. I still remember carrying parts with me on subway car to a graveyard shift at work. Cops were often curious what I carry in that giant bag after midnight. Unzip - wheel fairings and some epoxy.

Welcome to the obsession you will enjoy the building. I know, I had. :)
 
I'm building my -14A in half of a two car garage. I live in a condo complex and spent a considerable amount of brainpower figuring out how to do this without being "that guy" who bothers my neighbors.

My biggest concern was noise. Some things you do in building are noisy and you just can't do much about it, but I've made the effort to minimize it. For example, I got a very quiet air compressor made by California Air Tools. It was a little more expensive, but in my opinion well worth it.

I bought a pneumatic squeezer and do as much riveting as I can with it. I makes very little noise, save for the nasty language when I clench a rivet. I'm also using the DRDT-2 press dimpler. No banging noises and despite hearing some claims it doesn't make dimples as good as a C-frame I've yet to see the difference.

Those operations that are going to be noisy no matter what (e.g. band saw, grinding and deburring on the bench grinder, sanding with the bench belt sander, etc.) I do on weekends in the middle of the day.

So far my neighbors are not bothered by the occasional bout of noise. I get visits often by them to see my progress.
 
Spend your extra couple hours after major work researching and reading drawings, plan what task you accomplish next and accomplish it in two weeks. Study plans, deburr a bracket, crimp a thing or two, dream, if you stay on it every day expect your first flight in 1,000 days. Or a week earlier...

Vlad has it right here. Most people that keep track of their build time (can I see a show of hands engineers?!) track only time in the shop. If they were honest, they'd probably log at least half as much additional time doing research, looking at plans, and purchasing. There is a whole lot of that to do.

My latest kit project is being shipped at the end of next week - I ordered it in July, and probably have spent several hundred hours already "working" on it....and don't yet have any parts!

Paul
 
My latest kit project is being shipped at the end of next week - I ordered it in July, and probably have spent several hundred hours already "working" on it....and don't yet have any parts!

Paul

Very similar scenario to Paul, kit due in Dec------already grabbing parts here on VAF. Many hours of planning already spent on panel layout and systems design.

I spend at least half of my time pondering things compared to actually hands on work.

But------not being an engineer, I do not count dollars or time;)
 
If you decide to do that, how about this: Instead of trying to build some things here and some things there, do some common tasks that can be done on the part level at the smaller facility. Things like deburring or sorting hardware or even priming. Then assembly will happen at the main place.

That way tools aren't duplicated as much and since you'll be working on pieces, they can be stopped and picked up again later without much impact. Also, you'll be hauling around pieces rather than major airplane parts. If something's damaged in the transportation, it's a smaller impact.

Dave
 
Hi, I've just started on an RV-9 and similarly I spend a lot of time working away. I'm using the time I spend travelling to do research, study plans & instructions, and just generally prepare, so when I get home again I can get stuck in. Unfortunately a lot of the processes are noisy as others have mentioned, but with a bit of thought & planning you can have a few quiet things to get on with (like deburring or fluting, hand sanding, soldering / crimping). I've thought about taking parts away with me, but again as already mentioned the potential damage or not having the right tool is going to make that a bit hard to implement.

However you decide to proceed, have fun (it is truly the best thing to be doing!), and you'll find all sorts of ways to stay productive.
 
townhouse

I spent hours filling and sanding the wheel pants behind our townhouse when we owned our home and townhouse and were finishing our 10. There were no backyard neighbors or walkable green space. There was a hose and spigot for wet sanding. No one even knew I was back there (which was a good thing)
 
Most people that keep track of their build time (can I see a show of hands engineers?!) track only time in the shop. If they were honest, they'd probably log at least half as much additional time doing research, looking at plans, and purchasing.
It's really hard to track the time when your mind wonders back to the airplane even though you are supposed to be focused on something else!
 
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