Tools

What tools you need will depend on if you are building your homebuilt aircraft from a kit or from plans and if you are doing an all metal, composite, or rag and tube airplane.  The Kitfox Series 6 is a rag and tube design and can be completed with minimal tools, although you will probably want more than the minimum

	Rivet squeezer.  This tool lets you install rivets within 1.5" of the edge without a rivet gun, it just quietly squeezes the rivet perfectly every time.  My plane is not metal skinned but there are still probably 300 solid rivets in it and I could have just manually pounded the rivets without buying this but it is one tool I will get lots of use out of after the plane is done and I'm glad I bought it.  If you want to save the $140, I would try borrowing one from someone - good luck though.  These Tatco THS15 squeezers are so beautifully machined in the U.S.A. that they are pieces of art and most folks treat them as children and won't let them out of their sight.
	pop riveter.  For any aircraft you will need one of these.  I have found that any old cheap rivet puller from the local hardware store works fine.  I have a couple, this one I have ground the tip to make it fit in narrow spaces.
	cleco tool and lots of clecos.  These ingenious devices are used as temporary rivets.  Many times you will be drilling a line of holes and you will put a cleco in each hole after you drill it to insure that when you are done that every hole lines up exactly.  The pliers on the left pushes the head of the cleco down which makes the tip of the cleco small enough to fit thru the #30 (bronze) or #40 (silver) holes, after the cleco is installed the pliers are removed and the spring loaded cleco tip expands and tightly grips the pieces of metal together.
	high quality variable speed drill - cordless or air.  I prefer the air but in my small garage I dont always have room for my compressor so many times I need to use the cordless.  I find with the air, the speed control is more precise and that even with the hose that the gun is easier to maneuver.  If you are keeping tool purchases to a minimum - go with the cordless!
	swaging tool for nicopress fittings.  Used  for most all cable ends, you will almost certainly need one of these inexpensive tools.  Hammering the nicopress fitting is just not acceptable.
	terminal crimper for single wire terminations.  If you are making your own wiring harness, you will need several crimpers.  Crimping is the best method of making electrical connections in a vibration environment, soldering is bad because the wires will break at the point in the wire where the solder wicking stopped. Make sure you get the right crimper for the right connectors, this one is used for terminating single wires with ring ends.
	molex crimper set for wire harnesses.  For wire harnesses many times you have multiple wires together serving one purpose and you need to be able to disconnect everything for service.  In this case you will need multi-connectors.  I would highly recommend getting a kit like this one shown so that you are 100% sure that the crimper goes with the connectors fits with the housings.
	levels for rigging, 24" and 48" or longer.  For the construction of many experimental aircraft, a digital level will make things much easier.
	flare tool for brakes and fuel lines (not automotive!)  All flared connections in aircraft are made with a 37 degree flare, not the 45 degrees used in automotive applications.
	drill press, you really need one!  In my kit, I had to do basic metal working to turn bar stock or angle stock into some bracket.  The drill press is really needed and a hand drill would not have worked.  This tool is manditory and pretty cheap, get a used one on ebay or get an inexpensive taiwanese import from grizzly or jet- they are much better quality than they used to be.
	band saw, an optional item but very nice to have.  I could have used a coping saw and hand saws in the building of this plane but the quality would have been lower.  If you decide to get one and have a small shop like me then a rolling base is an absolute necessity - I cant tell you how many miles I have on this bandsaw pushing it out of the way!
	lathe, an optional item but comes in really handy for making perfect bearings.  My lathe is much larger than is necessary, a much better choice would have been a small mill/drill/lathe unit from jet or grizzly.  Although the precision would have been lower with the smaller tool, the space it would have saved in my small shop would have made it an excellent choice and I could have eliminated the need for a separate drill press.
	for grinding and polishing metal, really quite necessary.  All the brackets in this plane are made out of aluminum and although they are all hidden, I like polishing them - kinda silly but it makes me feel better.
	Torque wrenches, mandatory.  Torquing of nuts must be done accurately for safety, I like the ones with the audible click when the torque is reached like the one shown on the top.  The beam style shown below is cheaper but they can be very inconvenient to use.  For the lower torques like 12 inch-lbs, I wasnt able to find a "clicking" torque wrench so I had to get a beam variety.
	Safety glasses and cartridge respirator.  Eye and lung protection is much cheaper than my deductible on a trip to the emergency room - a very wise investment.  For some paints, a positive pressure fresh air system will be required - I dont plan on using anything that toxic.
	Spring clamps, you can never have enough!  Go to home depot and load up!  You can save some money and get the cheap imports, they are almost as good as the USA made ones.
	Parts.  Even though your kit is complete, you will probably need a few bins (I have 5) of spare parts.  Most nuts cant be re-used so if you test fit the whole plane together you will be replacing all the nuts.
	Cable cutter, keeps cable ends clean
	Safety wire twisters, saves you from carpal-tunnel when doing safety wires.
	An arbor press, required for some bearings.  You probably wont need one of these and if you do you can probably use a vise/pliars/hammer to do the job.
	OK, I just spent 8 hrs trying to rig my flapperons with a normal bubble level and I still was not able to get it right.  I was trying to save the $99 for a digital level but you really need one to get things rigged accurately.  My 8 hrs with the bubble level and a protractor only got me to within 2 degrees and that's not accurate enough.  I need to buy this asap!
	Scale or balance for mixing of epoxy is a necessity.  The DW_100A is a jewelry scale and is accurate to .001 oz with a max weight of 3oz and costs $60.  The Precision Lab Table Scale from Amazon.com has an accuracy of .1g and a max weight of 2.2lbs and a cost of $40
	high quality drill bit set plus 10 additional each of the most used sizes like #30 and #40
	spray painting outfit, HVLP or a conversion system run off your air compressor
	air tools

back