Pre-made tool kits

Hello all,

it's easy to place an order of an empennage kit from Van's since there only one to choose. However when considering tool kits, there are variety of suppliers which all has more or less different pricing, quality and contents. There must be differencies, even "all" claim to be at least having tools listed by Van and some have added even some more.

I'd like to hear some comments, whether to buy tool kit which may save few hundreds or order items separately. I've heard that Avery would have good hand squeezer and instead of mushroom flush set it might be better get one with the rubber edges to avoid smileys... So is there tool kits where only few tool changes would make them superior? You defenitely can't get all best items in one kit, but in case you have bough kit you could tell which of the tools were good and which bad.

There has been already discussion about the rivet guns so let's keep them there.

I bought mine from Cleaveland Aircraft Tools and am very happy. I would absolutely, positively substitute the pneumatic squeezer for the hand-powered version and add the 4" and longeron yokes. Cleaveland is very prompt and they have mini-videos online for learning to use most tools.

I bought my tools one by one from different vendors ... I notice that you are from Europe, so with shipping costs that may not be the most efficient way for you to do things. I definitely spent more doing it this way, but I was able to pick and choose what I wanted.
I think all of the major vendors (Cleaveland, Avery, etc.) have good packages that are high quality tools.

p.s. van's may only have one empennage but you still have to decide -7 -8 -9 etc!

Thomas
-8 wings

TShort said:

I notice that you are from Europe, so with shipping costs that may not be the most efficient way for you to do things.

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Yes, but in practice tools like this aren't available from here so better to order them from States... after all shipping cost from tools aren't that much compared to other expenses so better get good tools even they would cost a bit more.

Extremely fast replys, keep them coming so I don't have to wait weeks to select where to order tools.

Decisions

I bought the Cleveland kit and I substituted the peneumatic squeezer as well. After taking it to the Alexander class I am happy to report that I used pretty much everything in the kit and am happy with what I got. There do need to be some things added and Dan's section on tools is a good place to look.

A lot of what you get is going to be based on your preferences. For example, the pneumatic squeezer is great for the 1/8 inch rivets but really isn't necessary for the edge skin rivets. I found that a traditional squeezer, tatco or Avery, worked well, gave me more control, and allowed me to work quickly. I am sure others do just fine with the pneumatic squeezer or whatever they have.

The only problem with the Tatco squeezer is that it doesn't use the same yokes as the pneumatic squeezer. It is a nice little squeezer otherwise. The Avery and Cleveland squeezers do use the same yokes as the pneumatic squeezer.

Do get the quick disconnect pins and the adjustable ram for the pneumatic squeezer. They are pretty much a necessity as far as I am concerned.

If you are going slowbuild, you may want to get more clecos than come in the initial kit.

Get several pairs of cleco pliers. They seem to never be where you think they should be. Keep a pair in your back pocket all day long. Keep a pair in the bucket with the clecos and have a couple of other pairs available for guests.

You will need a longeron yoke and a 4" no hole thin-nose yoke for sure.

If you can get a nice big piece of steel to use as a back rivet plate I recommend doing that over purchasing the one from Cleveland or Avery. The one we used at school was probably 32 inches by 24 inches. This allowed us to rivet several rows of stiffeners without worrying about slipping off the edge of the plate. The kit plates will work fine, you just have to be careful.

I liked the Avery deburring tool better than the smaller cutter that comes in the Cleveland kit.

Controversial, I know, but my instructor recommended using the #41 drills and reamers for the small rivets. Whether you go 40 or 41 is up to you but I do recommend getting reamers for both these and the #30 holes. The reamers are more expensive but they work great for the predrilled holes. The holes are really nice and round and require a minimum amount of deburring.

The kits come with 4 of those 1/2" cleco clamps. I recommend you up that number to 10 or more. You can never have too many clamps. You will need a variety of other clamps as well but can probably buy them at your local home improvement store. A couple of those 24" stanley bar clamps with the squeeze handles work nicely to clamp parts down to the table. A number of those stanley C type clamps with the vice grip type handles work nicely for reaching around flanges to clamp two pieces together.

The lightweight hose kits are nice. I highly recommend a couple of them.

Do get the good brass restrictor (regulator) for the rivet gun. It isn't necessary for the drill or squeezer but is real nice for the rivet gun. It won't hurt to add them to the drill and squeezer but really are not necessary.

Do get the swivel flat set with the red rubber guard around it. This is for driving skin rivets. The swivel will save you if you don't have the gun perfectly perpendicular to the skin. The red rubber needs to be cut/sanded down flush with the set face.

The kits come with the medium scotch brite wheel. It is called a "cut and polishing" wheel and will take off aluminum pretty quickly. It is really good for shaping corners and parts. We also used the fine wheel for most of our deburring of ribs and parts. It works really nicely and doesn't take off too much too quickly. I recommend putting the medium on one side of your bench grinder and the fine on the other. It worked great for us.

I also purchased the smart tool digital level/protractor just because I thought it was neat. I got the 24 inch aluminum rail extension as well. I haven't needed it for my kit yet but I use it around the house quite often and used it extensively in building my storage shed. It is a neat tool and I think will work great when I get to the fuselage and all of the alignments etc.

Get a nice bench vice with big smooth jaws. You will need to clamp a number of things for shaping including the lead weights.

Speaking of shaping parts get a number of files. A small set of needle files is nice as is a 1/4" round file. A large vixen file works nicely for shaving down the lead weights. A variety of medium to fine flat and half-round files works nicely for shaping and smoothing relief cuts and inside corners.

There were only a couple of places that I had difficulty dimpling but when I did the small vice grip dimpler from Avery worked pretty well. Certainly not as well as the DRDT-2 dimpling tool but pretty well.

Speaking of dimpling tools the DRDT-2 is a really nice piece of equipment. Once can fly through a skin really quickly and the dimples are really nice and crisp and uniform. Not to mention how much quieter it is than pounding a C-Frame.

Get some boelube liquid for drilling thicker pieces.

A 1/8" and 3/32" pin punch works well for drilling out rivets.

Get a drill guage so you can quickly check your bits to make sure you have the correct one. Always check before starting a new operation to assure you have the correct bit for the job at hand.

There are a variety of rivet guages out there, I guess all are adequate. I found some work better than others in different situations so it is difficult to say buy one over another.

Get the Avery edge marking block (Part Number 6352). It is great for marking the centerline of piano hinges and ribs that are not predrilled. Or marking a line X distance from the edge of a straight piece.

Get the keyless drill chuck. You will be happy you did the first day you start drilling.



Of course this is just my opinion which isn't worth much, but these items made my empennage go together much more smoothly.

Tool kits

Pirkka:

I went with the kit from ATS and was satisfied for the most part except for the C frame. Not a good quality item.

Don't expect anyone's kit to provide every tool you'll need. Expect to buy many more over the course of your build. At a minimum, most kits only provide basic airframe tools, you'll need to buy wiring and tubing tools, torque wrenches and many more. I hope you belong to a local EAA chapter where you will find many like-mined folks with experience and TOOLS.

After I came to a work stoppage for the second time because I required a drill size not in my "kit", I bought a complete set of drills from 1 - 60. I thought that would fix that problem, but last week I came to another stoppage due to a need for a .331 drill, GROAN. I recommend a full drill set so you can keep forging ahead when needed.

I chose to use an electric drill instead of the air drill from my kit. I find it is easier all-in-all and has more power. For one thing, I need to drill every day and the electric lets me avoid filling and emptying the compressor each day. This also frees me and my copilot from listening to the noise. I only turn my compressor on occassionally when I need to prime or buck rivets.

Other tools... bench grinder, drill press, hack saw, vise, shop vac, flex shaft drill drive, band saw, drill drive extension, vise grip dimpler, pop-rivet style dimpler, calipers, inspection mirror, safety wire pliers, mini files, nibler, respirator and goggles, drop light, dremel tool with as many different bits as you can find, hole saws, grinding and sanding accessories for your drill, beer refridgerator (one of my building buddies (RV-7) has a tap in his shop, he's one happy builder and remarkably has all his fingers).

Always keep a stock of #30 and #40 drill bits and dimple dies on hand. Think of them as consumeables. I broke 2 #40 dimple dies last night alone. Luckily, I had a third die, my vise-grip dimpler and 2-pop rivet die sets so THAT SUCKER GOT DIMPLED and I continued to roll.

One of my favorite add-ons is a 100 degree deburring tip that I put in an electric screw driver for faster and easier deburring. This has been a big timesaver. I bought a chuck designed to fit into a screw driver to hold the tip securely. This also allows me to slip the whole chuck and tip off of the driver and spin it with my fingers in close areas. An added bonus is that I now have a handy 100 degree bit to sink an occasional countersink where it's not too critical

I've used the Avery squeezer and can attest to it's high quality and great design. I would buy that and delete the squeezer from my ATS kit if I could do it over. The ATS is good quality but it's not as flexible as the Avery.

My ATS kit cost me $1255 in 2004 and I now have $3557 in tools that I didn't have when I started this madness. Consider your tool kit to be a starter kit only.

Jekyll

kit

i bought my tool piece by piece but if you looking for good quality tools for cheaper price try ustool.com their price is around 1390$ and their tools are good quality also try the yard store same price and good guality too also in their kit is tools like angle drill, sioux drill and more all clecos are include in both kits you will find more tools you will need later but both kits are complete and they are by vans recomended tool list

Pirkka said:

Hello all,
I'd like to hear some comments, whether to buy tool kit which may save few hundreds or order items separately. I've heard that Avery would have good hand squeezer and instead of mushroom flush set it might be better get one with the rubber edges to avoid smileys... So is there tool kits where only few tool changes would make them superior? You defenitely can't get all best items in one kit, but in case you have bough kit you could tell which of the tools were good and which bad.

Click to expand...

Everyone (and I mean everyone) who bought their tools separately regretted it in the end. Of course they did so in an attempt to save money...but they didn't save any...it cost them more because they bought the wrong things. It's impossible to buy appropriate aircraft tools separately if you do not know anything about aircraft tools.

Go straight to Avery or Cleaveland and buy their best kit. These kits are very very basic and you will use everything in them. And then you will end up buying lots lots more tools over the course of the project. I bought the Avery deluxe kit (very happy) but I've already spend three times that much and I haven't got to the firewall forward.

If you're doing a slowbuild then purchase a pneumatic squeezer...don't think about it...just do it. It's not just for rivetting....it's for thousands of dimples as well. I told my wife to bury my pneumatic rivetter with me if I die.

As a rule of thumb if you have no existing workshop you can expect to spend about 8% of final project cost on tools and workshop accessories.

A caution. You can't build a nice plane with crappy (or insufficient) tools...so don't go for the cheapest of everything and don't try to perform a task with a tool not suited for the operation.

I always say to prospective builders: "If you can't afford the tools, you certainly can't afford the plane".

And finally, you can get back a lot of your investment in decent tools if you sell them when you finish the project. For example good condition second hand pneumatic squeezers sell like hot cakes and don't drop much in value.

But in the end you probably won't sell your tools...not many do. They're saving them for the next project....or the next groundloop.

Special case, I guess.

Bob Barrow said:

Everyone (and I mean everyone) who bought their tools separately regretted it in the end.

If you're doing a slowbuild then purchase a pneumatic squeezer...don't think about it...just do it.

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I must be a special case. I took the time to compare all the tool kit inventories from the common suppliers like Avery, Cleveland etc and also Van's recommended list. Then went to Ebay and purchased 90% of the items in 3 auctions. I inventoried what I received and completed the kit with a small order to ATS. In all, I spent well less that a new kit and wound up with MANY more tools than are normally provided in a singular kit. There are only a meager few of the "extra" tools that I have not used yet.

I know the pneumatic squeezer is a nice tool, but my internet purchases contained a Tatco with ALL the different jaws available and a huge box of squeezer sets of different lengths. I considered reselling and obtaining a pneumatic, but I did not. I do not regret it. The adaptability of this well outfitted "kit" far outweighs the same cash spent on a pneumatic squeezer with limited tooling.

I certainly agree that one should get a tool to do the job properly, since there is so much invested in one of these projects. I think there are options to accomplish the same goal.

How would I say it: excellent comments guys. Never thougth I would get this many quality answers in such a short time.

It seems that Avery and Cleaveland which are most commonly used. I like the style how Cleaveland presents their kit showing prices for invidual items for easier comparison when Avery has just a list without links and prices. As someone said that this is starter kit anyway -- I agree and not looking for a cheapest tools I can find. However it doesn't mean that I'm willing to invest something that is not worth of.

At least two comments were about the longeron yoke and a 4" no hole thin-nose yoke. For me it seems that hand squeezer has "default" 3" yoke and yokes (I can live with it ) are pretty expensive. So why these additional yokes aren't included in the kits and do you need them also with QB kit as well?

About back rivet plates: argree with you -- how piece of steel can be that costly. I'll visit local junk yard and see what they can offer for me.

I was aware that I need more than one drill of each for sure but it seems I should also invest couple of dimple sets as well.

Once again, thanks for your comments I really appreciate your knowledge since we are talking about the subject which I don't know about. However, in Finland making the experimental plain is considered as "learning event" so at start you are really not required to have any particular skills. Metal working is pretty new thing for me but I stick in that rather than go to fibreglass or wooden aircrafts...

Pirkka,

Hyvaa Paivaa! Please excuse any misspellings

Do you happen to know who Jorma Vennola is (very slightly famous in Finland, but even if you don't know him he's a heck of a nice guy)? If you're anywhere near Turku, he might be interested in having a look at your project when you've gotten it started. E-mail me at:

[email protected]


re: tools to buy

I have tools from both Avery and Cleveland. Everything I've bought so far is high quality, and I've been very satisfied. Cleveland's die's are a little bit nicer than Avery's. Avery folk seem to have a bit more time to chat and give advice. I order from both more or less at random. Whatever....anything you get from either will be high quality and work. I would suggest adding to whatever kit you get LOTS more clecos (you'll need them) and a rod-end tool, though. You can build one out of PVC, or an old socket but I've tried both and finally bought the "real deal" . If not, you'll be bumming when you finish your rudder and have no way of hanging it on the VS without the right tool (ask me how I know this....)

Clear Air Tools

Give Fred Kunkel a call at Clear Air Tools. He's putting together a nice tool kit for RV builders. He sells yoke set kits and pneumatic squeezers and the prices are extremely competitive. Nobody knows pneumatic tools like Fred does.

Just my opinions:

From Cleaveland: Get their edge roller. Better than Avery, by far. Also their "Main Squeeze" is great & if money is an issue, you can easily get by with it instead of a pneumatic squeezer. Much better than any other hand squeezer because of the leveraging method they use. Also lighter.

From Fred Kunkel (ClearAir Tools) (http://clearairtools.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=CA) : Get his rivet gage. The best, by far. Best prices on squeezer yokes, but not a great discount. Also has reamers, which, as someone else mentioned, are the way to go for match drilling, as every hole comes out round which is not the case with drill bits. Very knowledgeable and informative if you have any questions.

From Brown (http://www.browntool.com): Best prices on Sioux drills (the 1412 is on sale right now for $185 vs. $235 at Avery) and clecoes ($.35 vs .42 at Avery & .41 at Cleaveland, according to my latest catalogs). In the US, they ship for free if you spend over $85. Ask if you can get a break on shipping to Europe. Also, watch their sales online. I bought clecoes from them for about $.25 each a couple years back.

From The Yard: Get their pneumatic cleco tool for about $28. Much easier on the hands when you have to place or pull a hundred of clecoes at one session.

Rivet gun: 3X for sure, and best brands are Chicago Pneumatic (#1) or Ingersoll Rand (#2).

Deburring cutter: I prefer the single flute model sold by Avery, cat #15300. The 3 flute cutters are prone to chatter, especially on the softer alloys. And one revolution usually does the job. I disagree about using a power screwdriver for deburring as I can't see how you can only turn one revolution with it. More & you start to countersink the hole.

Avery: Almost all their stuff is good, but you pay the price. Good service.

Also, no way did I spend more by picking & choosing from several suppliers. The kits just get you started. And no one vendor has the perfect kit.

Richard Scott
RV-9A Wings

Hi.

I have a parcel heading to me in sweden right now with some tools from Avery.

My way may be wrong, but i compared the existing toolkits and made my own by picking out the tools that i really needed to be imported and leaved those i can buy here out.
As you recieve a quantity discount anyway it doesnt matter if you choose their kit or make your own.

Tool Kits

You will be happy with the Avery Tools. I took the piece by piece approach, but probably would go with a Cleavland or Avery kit to get started would I do it over again. I LOVE my pneumatic squeezer. Plan on getting one even for a QB kit. The Longerone and 4" no hole yokes are really handy. If your experience is like mine, you will want to squeeze everything you can. The Avery manual squeezer is a good companion to the pneumatic.

Plan on using the fine 3M 6" wheel the most. I use the medium wheel some, but after trueing up the edges with a file, and touching up with a debur tool, the fine 3M wheel is all that's needed to put a perfect edge on the parts. I use a dremel with donnuts of 3M sheet on an arbor to get into the corners. Maybe too anal, but that's why I'm an engineer.

Have fun!

Terry Frazier
7A QB - Rudder

Pneumatic Drill & Squeezer

I bought the Cleveland kit but substituted the Mac drill instead of the Souix drill. That saved $100. The Mac drill is a very nice drill and it's variable speed trigger is easy to control. An RV friend came by who had the Souix drill and said he liked the my Mac one better.

I have a pneumatic squeezer that I bought off E-bay, but wouldn't be without the Cleveland Main Squeeze. If you clamp it into your vice it makes dimpling ribs really fast. Much better than a Tatco I tried in the past because of its design to give you a mechanical advantage. I also wouldn't be without the DRDT-2 Dimpler. I would suggest ordering the kit without the C-frame and buying one of those.