I don't really have much of an issue with gear leg movement but there is just a bit of oscillation that gets introduced right around 20 knots. The idea of adding a wooden dampener to the metal gear leg to dampen out any induced oscillation is introduced with the plans but is not specifically required.
After reading a number of enthusiastic stories about gear leg stiffeners on VAF I contacted a fellow from Florida who makes them up but he did not have any on hand and only made them up in batches once in a while.... it's only wood... how hard can it be?
I looked at the racks of base molding at Lowe's and settled on an 8' stick of tapered pine. I back cut the stick with a 30 degree angle so the joined halves would nest the gear leg. The back side of the base has some raised ridges that need to be knocked off so that they can be glued back together. I used a my vixen file to remove the ridge and finished it with a sander.
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| raised ridge on the back side of the base before and after sanding it off |
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| glued halves back to back together |
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| ready for finishing |
I used a wooden dowel about the size of the gear leg and wrapped some sand paper to shape the join.
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| sanding the stiffener to match the gear leg |
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| testing the fit of the finished piece |
The plans suggest bonding the stiffener to the gear leg with an extensive glass and resin wrap but I was not committed to the idea or the position of the stiffener and wanted a more flexible solution. I tried some long zip ties and found that the ones that I had were not strong enough to stand up to my efforts to tighten them hard... it turns out that the small lock tab on a zip tie is where the pull strength is from and the higher rated ties have a more stout tab. I found some stronger ties and used them to bind the stiffener to the leg.
It is a better solution than wrapping it in glass.
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| ready to put back together |
So, how do they work? They give a bit more solid feel to the gear when taxiing and have knocked down the last bit of oscillation. I am keeping them on!
