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Which tools / toolkit should every small GA airplane owner have for maintenance?

As some might have picked up elsewhere on the Forum, Im about to restore an RV-4.
Eventough I do have a lot of nice tools in the hangar, Im still short of the standard building tools.

I have tried searching the European pages for used tools, but unsuccessful so far. But my feeling is that there is a lot of these tools laying around.
So if you have or known someone that have such tools, I would be very interested in buying.

Everything of interest, but initial needs are as follows:
+ Riveting Gun Kit(Bucking bars, diff heads)
+ Bench Dimpler/Riveting tool
+ Pneumatic drill (Straight and angles)
+ Pneumatic Sheet metal cutter
+ Rivet Squeezer
+ Microstop Countersink kit
+ Clecos & Clamps
+ Sheet metal brake

++++(Whatever tool one need for homebuilders)

Espen

spirit49
LOIH

A fairly large Part 145 around the corner from where I am based just recently closed. Company Kiener Flug. I know they are selling off their equipment.

I think the best aviation tools are made in the USA. For example I bought really nice multimode wire locking pliers, for about $100. Not cheap though.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Not an answer to your question, and it is still a fair time away, but make sure to visit the French homebuilders’ meetup; usually it is in Vichy in mid-July.

Here is a picture to wet your appetite.

NB if need a Dolmetscher, yours truly is available at very affordable rates…

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

You can never get enough tools.

I purchased a tool kit at Avery tools. They sell kits specially put together for different aircraft.

This has been supplied with lots of other stuff. A pneumatic rivet squizer is a must, not usually supplied with these kits. Good drill bits, purchase a whole bunch of the usual #30 and #40, and throws them away when they get old and worn. Larger bits can easily be sharpened.

Aircraft tool supply is also good, they are more professional in a way, and there are others.

A good file is probably the tool I use the most. Also a vixen file, but learn how to use it!

But again, you can never get enough.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Bucking bars. Get a couple of tungsten (wolfram) bars. They cost a lot, but are much better. I purchased mine directly from China at 1/3 the price. All wolfram is produced in China.

Wolfram is as heavy as gold, but strong as steel. This means they are tiny, but heavy and hard, exactly what you want.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Im BUMPING this thread.

It seems to me that finding used tools for aircraft building in Europe is VERY hard.
There are few forums that contains a lot of homebuilders. Mostly small forums that are divided by type of aircraft and also language.
Nothing like the big ones in the US (VansAirForce etc)

I have searched the European web for days, and can not even find a proper aircraft tools shop online. Only shops that resell from the US pages.

SO; If you know of anybody that has given up on homebuilding and have the garage full of tools, please let me know.
There must be a lot of these around. Im sure.
Ask your friends at your local airport!

Tools are heavy. A proper C-form dimpler/riveter is 25 kg. Thats going to triple its price before it is delivered in Europe.

Espen

spirit49
LOIH

I suspect that

  • the amount of homebuilding in Europe is about 1% of the USA’s
  • in all areas of life, people keep good tools for ever (try buying a nice used lathe, etc)

You could ask a US based pilot on here to consolidate a shipment for you. If you ship to a DHL etc account number, he doesn’t have to do anything much. You can book it all from your end. You just need to arrange a suitable container to be delivered to his address and he chucks everything in there.

You may also find a friendly pilot on Vans. I found a pilot on a US site who turned out to be a senior FAA inspector and he helped me do the approvals for this project and did it all for nothing. There are many really great people out there, and many want to help us struggling Europeans.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I concur with Peter’s thoughts, and would venture to add

  • homebuilders, even more than the rest of the aviators, are doers, not talkers. An aircraft project will never get finished if one doesn’t spend every possible minute at it. So very few homebuilders will spend a lot of time behind their PC. The best will create a build log, perhaps even with photography.

However, have you visited homebuiltairplanes.com ? There are a handful of active European participants.

Last Edited by at 14 Nov 08:55
EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

Jan_Olieslagers wrote:

The best will create a build log, perhaps even with photography.

That is in fact a “requirement” if you want to sell it later, and certainly if you want to import/export one. It is also a “must” so you can verify yourself that what you actually have done. Structures get closed after a while, and there will be no going back to check if those odd rivets and bolts really was done right. Documentation in a blog is easy and quick and also pretty much a necessity when communicating on the internet with other builders.

Most builders are active an the internet. I would even say that internet is what has made homebuilding what it is today. Without resources like Vans Airforce and Sonexbuilders etc, building would have been 2-3 times more difficult, and exclusively for the most hard core.

Not only are tools only available in the US, but the same tools that also are available in Europe are more expensive than those in the US, transport included. Special aircraft tools that is. More general tools like files and hammers and so on, can be purchased here. I also got lots of riveting tools and tons of rivets from an old air force mechanic.

There are lots of builders in Europe, they just aren’t here on this site (for reasons that seems to be beyond grasp of most people on this site ). I use Google Blogger to log my building, and it is interesting to look at the visitor statistics (in percentage).

USA 55.2
Russia 11.9
Norway 8.8
Australia 5.3
France 5.2
Ukraina 4.1
Canada 2.7
Germany 2.6
Sweden 2.4
UK 1.8

I have seen some statistics of Vans aircraft, and US is number one, then Canada, Australia, etc. Vans are rather popular everywhere actually.

Sonex aircraft has an online database which is more or less up to date. The number of Sonex aircraft (all variants, finished and unfinished):
USA 1547
Canada 101
Belgium 2
France 16
Germany 2
Italy 10
Latvia 1
Netherlands 3
Norway 11
Poland 2
Portugal 1
Russia 2
Slovenia 1
Spain 8
Sweden 2
Switzerland 1
Turkiy 1
UK 17

Europe 80

Europe vs US is about 5.2% (5 times more than 1 ). For RVs I think it is a bit more. In addition there are domestic designs in France and Zcech in particular. I would guess about 10 compared with the US.
UK and Germany is 70-80% of European GA, but only about 22% of homebuilders. Norway is what ? 0.1 % of European GA but 14% of homebuilders. Of course in France and Czech they build lots of domestic designs, but this only makes UK and Germany even more irrelevant regarding hombuilding.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway
95 Posts
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