From: Fredmoreno@aol.com
Message-ID: <32ced404.36e4003e@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 11:52:14 EST
To: lancair.list@olsusa.com
Subject: Getting started
Mime-Version: 1.0

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Curtis:

		Let me also welcome you to the club.  Rob's advice was excellent.  Let me
add a couple of other suggestions for your shop.

1) Your Drehmel tool not only makes a lot of dust that is bad news for your
lungs.  It also makes a lot of vapor from the frictional heat while cutting.
Thermal decomposition of epoxy makes who knows what chemistry.  I recommend
you put your shop vac outside (quieter anyway), buy 20-30 feet of line, and
bring the suction hose into your shop so you can hold the vacuum inlet close
to where you are cutting.  It kills the dust and vapor, and puts the noxious
chemicals outside.  Feed power to your shop vac with an extension cord plugged
into a terminal strip with a switch, and you can turn the vac on and off from
inside your shop.  I cut a notch in the doggie door to bring the hose inside
my shop (which is my family room, so I have to keep it clean to keep from
tracking dust into the house - carpeted in white, of course). 

2) Use ear plugs when using the Drehmel tool.  The noise level is frequently
more than enough to leave your ears ringing when you go to bed, and that is a
warning that you are exceeding the safe sound level for your hearing.  Over
time it will decay and you will slowly suffer some permanent hearing loss
starting at high frequencies.  Save your hearing now and wear the little foam
plugs.  Yo will spend more hours with the Drehmel that you will in the
airplane, and you wouldn't fly without a good sound-deadening headset, would
you?

3) Set up a table outside to clean your epoxy-covered tools with Acetone.
Keep the acetone out of the shop.  And minimize you exposure to methylene
chloride. Great solvent, nearly inflammable (unlike Acetone and MEK), but
known to be harmful to living things.  Wear thick gloves when using MC.

4) I found that some days I could not work fiberglass strips.  Every lay-up
turned to garbage.  It takes practice, and you can also get rusty.   If this
happens to you, quit immediately, toss the wet stuff in the trash, and have a
beer.  Don't let it frustrate you.  Do it again tomorrow.

5) Rob is right: you need lots of horizontal surfaces.  They collect airplane
parts.

Fred