Bungee Truss

[N276KM]

Did the limiter cables do your truss in too? I've never installed them on my Avid, and haven't (yet) regretted the decision.

I'm also really curious about your radiator placement in the 2nd to last picture. Is that temporary, or is your radiator always that low? Do you get any vibration in the airstream?

[Model 2 Madness]

Yes... the cable yanked my truss down. The radiator was just hanging in that pic temporarily. Here it is reinstalled.....

[N276KM]

Ah, makes much more sense now!

[Timberwolf]

Good on you for taking the task on by yourself. However, the circled ares worry me. The welds look well...terrible. It looks like fitup was poor so you just piled in some more metal taking the "that bead is big enough, should do the job" approach. But in taking that approach you have also introduced a tremendous amount of unnecessary heat into the joint and increased the HAZ tremendously. In the top beam it looks like you attempted to couple it together, but this would not by the proper way to do this. The whole bar needs to be replaced. It may be a different story if this was a non structural member of the airframe. However, it is one of the most important parts of the frame and sees some very high and complex loads. If you were to have a hard landing and have the area collapse, I'm not sure the insurance would be required to cover the aircraft. Though that is going in a different direction, I believe you would be wise to cut the structure out and have it professionally welded back in. I am not telling you this to try to make you feel bad, I just would hate to see something happen because this point fails.

[kitfoxnick]

Been there done that.

[Model 2 Madness]

Thanks for the comments Timberwolf! (sorry, your actual name isn't visible). I am pretty sure the welds are strong. I did not perform the welding, a friend who rebuilt a Starduster II that suffered an off airport engine out landing by a previous owner did. He did a lot of frame welding on the Starduster to get it back up to spec. Also, several guys who have built, rebuilt, and repaired steel tubed aircraft have looked over the work and told me it looks strong.

I guess the picture makes the weld not look too good.

-Steven Ragan
Ft. Hood, TX