The Pedal Gee Bee

You’ll be able to cut and assemble the entire project with a jigsaw, an electric drill, a circular saw, Philips screwdrivers, a socket set, various grades of sandpaper, and glue. This should be considered the minimum you’ll need. Quite frankly, as I’m building this project, I don’t think I’d finish satisfactorily without a few more to either speed up/secure the assembly process or ensure a little more accuracy in the cuts. I didn’t need to buy most of what I suggest here. I either inherited it or already owned it. Do not feel that in order to complete this project, you’ll need $2,000 in woodworking equipment. You don’t. (But it will sure help!) What I suggest in addition to the above tools are the following:

• Band saw with at least 12” capacity - Having a band saw makes the entire cutout process much more accurate, not to mention faster. Instead of one hand holding the jig saw and one on the work piece, you’ve got a stationary blade and two hands on the work piece. A correctly tuned band saw produces little if any vibration, which leads to both smoother curves and a less ragged cut. Smoother cuts mean that there’s less post-cut sanding, and therefore, less chance to remove wood that you really need to make a joint of correct proportions. Finally, without a band saw, you’ll have to improvise some jig for your router or jig saw to repetitively cut all the cowl ribs you’ll need. I’ve got a 12” Sears freestanding model that I inherited from my Grandfather.
• Drill press – A drill press ensures perpendicular and straight holes. If you haven’t looked at the plans yet, you’ll be drilling a lot of them. Furthermore you’ll be drilling a lot of them on separate pieces that can’t be drilled together, but will need to eventually line up. So accuracy is at a premium. You could probably get away with buying a press attachment for your electric hand drill but a drill press makes it immensely easier. I bought a 12” Ryobi benchtop. It’s perfect for everything in this project EXCEPT TURNING THE NOSEPLATE! You’ll need at least a 12” drill press to turn the nose plate, since the final diameter of the pine laminations is x.xx” before sanding.
• Circle cutting jig for your band saw, or better, one for your router - The cowl is EASILY the most complex part of the assembly process. If your nose plate or firewall is the least bit out-of-round, you’re going to wind up with an oval cowl. Seeing as how the bulbous, caricature-like nose of the Gee Bee is the natural focal point of the aircraft, it pays to be extra precise here. You’ll spend 10+ hours on the cowl alone. With the cutting of these parts in the first half-hour and final ‘roundness examination’ at the cowl’s completion, that’s 9 hours worth of work scrapped if it doesn’t come out right. My advice: Spend the $30 for a router jig (or build one) and remove the doubt altogether. A Jasper 230 gives you largest practical range but it’s tough to find. I settled for a Jasper 200.
• Table saw with a left tilt – My Delta 36-300 table saw, unfortunately, has a right tilt. I’ll basically have to reengineer a couple of the cowl rib fixtures to get around this. Imagine building the fixtures while looking at the plans in a mirror and you get the idea. Save yourself the trouble. If you’re buying a table saw in conjunction with this project, buy a one with a left tilt.
• Compass that can draw 14” circles – You know… like the ones you used in grade school, only bigger and beefier. There are several places where being able to draw a circular reference line of 6”+ radius is extremely handy.
• Polyurethane Glue – There are several joints that are going to receive a larger share of either the twisting or weight-bearing load. Usually these joints are inside the structure or will be hidden with the aluminum covers. There are also sections where you’ll be laminating (“sandwiching”) several layers together to build a larger part. Use the polyurethane glue in these cases. All of the major urethanes are infinitely stronger than standard carpenter’s wood glue, and they’re waterproof to boot. However, you must keep some things in mind when using them. First, they foam as they cure (by design) and will expand out of the joint no matter how well you fitted the parts. So you’ll need to be sparing in your glue-up, and sand any dried ooze afterward. Second, you’ll need lacquer thinner to get it off your hands. And finally, if you give this stuff an hour or so to cure in a correctly fitting joint, the parts ARE NOT coming apart…EVER. You’ll snap the wood itself before the joint fails.
• Clamps – You’ll need a bunch, but you don’t have to spend a fortune on them. Knock-off import clamps will do here. You’re not building Chippendale furniture. I’ve got about a dozen C-clamps of assorted sizes, 2 bar claps, 4 spring-type clamps, and 4 ratcheting spring clamps. The old woodworking maxim is “You can never have enough clamps”. I’m learning that more and more, but I’ve found the above collection adequate for this project.