Fuselage Jig/Brian Safran

[David Johnson]

Guys, these are too good not to post. Brian has sent me photos of his jig(built by Bill P.) and allowed me to post for everyone to see. Really good stuff. He has other photos showing all types of repairs, hope to get those and post soon. David J.

[bsafran]

These pictures are a few we took while repairing a poor Champ that got flipped over on its back in a windstorm. The tail was curled forward overtop of the fuselage and the owner called it his "Scorpion 7AC". The first picture shows where we cut the tail off and put the forward half into Bill's jig. The rest of the pictures show some of the gear area repairs, how we made up a complete new longeron and cross tube section and then spliced on a replacement tail. Mr. Pancake did a wonderful job setting this jig up to align every tube, fitting and bracket on a 7AC fuselage. I don't have a picture of the jig totally assembled, but it is an overbuilt monster when all the different pieces are joined together. This repair job has a sad ending though. The fuselage was owned by a young man who was on fire with enthusiasm about flying and restoring our type of airplanes. We can't find young guys like that anymore and it was a pleasure to meet someone who I thought would help carry on our love of Aeroncas. Unfortunately, right after he picked up the fuselage, he was giving some flight instruction in a Cessna 172 when a medivac helicopter ran him down, tore off a wing and ended a promising future for a great young man. His name was Jason Long and I miss him. It was fun having him in our shop.

[David Johnson]

Brian, pictures, pictures, more, more, please, please.....

[CptKelly]

All I can say is "WOW". Boy, with that jig, you could really have a nice straight fuselage. Sorry about your young friend. Thanks for the photos.

Mike

[Mikek]

All I can say is "WOW". Boy, with that jig, you could really have a nice straight fuselage. Sorry about your young friend. Thanks for the photos.

Mike

Same here "WOW" & "Sorry"

I can agree nice jig and very complete down to the all the tabs. It would be worth the trip from anywhere to get your fuselage repaired.

My IA and I traveled for 3 1/2 hrs from Dayton to just set it in to see how the tail was and it was out, but we also found that like 90% of these old birds it had another problem. The champ has a weak area due to the door opening causing the dim. from the wing attactment to the gear mounting tab to be less by 3/8-1/2 in. from all those landings and grass fields. When they installed the jig for the hole spread you could really see it. Brian and George the welder looked at it and said we would need to cut this tube and when we cut it the fuselage sprung to life correcting the 3/8 Dim. and also let the engine mounting point, upper right, come back into place.

They have a nice setup and they are great guys that love and know their stuff. Again 3 1/2 drive 2-3 hrs in the jig and we were on our way back to Dayton, Ohio.

Thanks again

[CptKelly]

You know, I was just sitting here thinking about how great your jig is for making tubing repairs. I also just read a piece from David Johnson regarding his well used fuselage. Why not take that great jig and make a completely NEW fuselage. Wouldn't it be wonderful to restore a Champ using a brand new fuselage? Has anybody thought of this?

Mike

[kyleb]

You know, I was just sitting here thinking about how great your jig is for making tubing repairs. I also just read a piece from David Johnson regarding his well used fuselage. Why not take that great jig and make a completely NEW fuselage. Wouldn't it be wonderful to restore a Champ using a brand new fuselage? Has anybody thought of this?

Mike

Bill Pancake made several (3?) entirely new fuselages on this jig. In the process, I understand he beefed up a few of the known weak areas of the standard fuselage. A couple of years ago, one was for sale on Barnstormers for about $7k.

[bsafran]

We have given a lot of thought about using Bill Pancake's jig to make completely new fuselages. However, this jig is designed more for repairs than initial manufacturing. Still, we had the manager of the Cleveland M.I.D.O (manufacturers inspection district office) come out and walk us through what was necessary to make it happen. There is so much expensive crap to do to get started and then so much more to keep it operational that it is mind boggling. If there was a good, strong market perhaps it might make sense to try. However, we have so little business coming our way to just repair fuselages, there is no way we could ever justify manufacturing them. In fact, business is so slow that once our present projects are completed, I'm giving some serious thought about selling the jig. Hopefully, someone younger with more energy (like my poor friend Jason Long who is no longer with us) can carry on Bill Pancake's tradition with his jig.

[Paul Agaliotis]

Brian,
If you sell it, sell it to someone out West. I have a trailer load of stuff I'd love to set-up in the fixture. But it's a long way from the West coast.
Paul

[David Johnson]

Just for fun, here are photos of the American Champion jig that all of the 7 & 8 series have been built on. Note how they had to put a higher top on it to clear the taller tail on the Citabria's and Decathlon's. Ran across them the other day. David J.

[CptKelly]

Just have the owner participate in building the new fuselage. Owner helps = owner produced part. Just use one small piece of the old fuselage, and wha-lah.... new fuse.

Mike

[joea]

Nice pics and good to see.

Sorry to hear about Jason, hurts when we lose someone like that.

Joe A