Direction

I'm not sure if you guys can help or not. I was at a friends house the other day and saw a home made tool used to straighten rib flanges. It was made of wood and mounted to a bench. All you did was to line up the flange along the edge and lower the handle. It looked like a quick way to do a mess of ribs. Only thing is he could not remember which website he saw it at.

Do any of you have an idea?

Any help would be appreciated,

Joe

I may be totally off base here, but wasn't there a video on you tube showing something like that? Could be wrong??

I don't remember where I found it either, but I remember the critical dimension was an 11 degree under cut on the top board. This is where the handle presses the flange against to 'overbend' so when it springs back you end up with a 90 degree web-flange bend.

Dave

I think I remember plans for this tool in the RVator. I purchased one of the spiral bound compilations, 21 years of RVator, at Oshkosh a few years ago.

I just checked and Van's sells an updated version, 27 Years of RVator in CD, book, or eBook format. $29.95. I guess it is actually sold at Builder's Bookstore, but there is a link from Van's website.

http://www.buildersbooks.com/products/act002/

RVator

From 1st issue 2000, an article titled "Flange Straightener" by Bill Gast.

yahoo RV7A new file added

Hi,
I don't know if this is the tool you're thinking about, but I've uploaded 3 pics in a zip file to yahoo RV7A group in the file folder.
File is called rib-tool-pics.zip

if you cannot get to the file and want to see the pics send me an email.

I built this early in my project based on someones pictures, made working with the rib flanges a snap. Tool is made of oak

I passed the tool onto Daniel Hoover in Texas, and hopefully on to many others after that.

Dave

Rib flange tool

Thanks for the info. I have both the 21 and 27 years of the rv8tor. The photo is in the most recent one, but it is a very poor picture. I will try to pull up the posted pic to see if it is any better. My friend told me he found it through Vans website in the RV-7 builder links.......THERE ARE A MESS OF WEBSITES!! So I'm going through one at a time......Does this make me anal?

Thanks again,

Joe

The picture in 24 Years of the aviator was good enough to build from.

I too could not follow the one in "21" because of the lack of clarity.

I found I had to calibrate where I pulled on the lever arm, to get consistent results.

Smoothing and flattening the base plate is a great idea. Next time I use mine, I'm mounting it to a mdf baseplate, rather than the spruce plywood I used the first time.

I found that wrapping the tip with a bit of electrical tape prevented some minor (buffs out) scratching fromt the lever arm end grain.

- I liked it better after i rounded the corners on the 2x2 lever arm.

I'm glad I built it. I managed without it, but this let the kids "help" a bit more.

Blue Skies,