Stewart 51 Parts – Another Big Shipment Arrives

Today I received BIG shipment of Stewart 51 parts.  Lots of good stuff including: Flaps and Ailerons, Horizontal Stabilizer, Canopy Frame, Belly Scoop Assembly, Spinner, Engine Mount, Tail-Wheel Steering Bracket, Chin Scoop and Main Landing Gear Door Stiffeners.

Here’s a few shots of the crate as I’m getting it opened and unpacked. You’ll also note my little hangar is quite full of….well, lots of stuff.  On the left is a Stolp Starduster Too project that I picked up to attempt to rebuild.  Needless to say, I took a couple of the salvageable parts but the of the fuselage was completely rusted.  As I was cutting out tubing to replace, I just kept cutting more…and more before I realized that it was all rotten.  This fuselage eventually got cut up and scrapped.

In the center of the picture, you can see the crate that I received.  On the right side you’ll see my original Stewart S-51 project. To make a long story short, this was determined to be an early plans built S-51 fuselage (which is dimensionally different from the wider kit version).

In this picture you can take note of the formed belly scoop skins.  There are also a couple other pieces of the belly scoop duct in the back ground (bent in a U-shape). There will be lots of trimming and fitting as all these pieces are made oversized.

 

Talk about nice work!  These parts are beautiful!

 

Engine Cradle Parts

These pieces are 2024-T3 aluminum – 0.125 inch thickness.

 

Spinner Assembly

The Stewart 51 spinner is all spun aluminum. Including the outer parts there are also several internal bulkheads and spacers.  There are 11 pieces in total that make up this assembly.

 

Leading Edge Skins

The wing leading edges are 0.040 thick.  In this picture you can see the pre-formed leading edge skins up on the wall at the top of the picture. Also on the top of the shelving unit you can see the shorter skins for the leading edge in the wing root area.

Canopy Frame

Here’s a shot of the aft side of the canopy frame.

 

 

Main Landing Gear Leg – Doors

These are the doors the mount to the main landing gear struts. On the inner formed part of the door, not only is this piece pressed and formed but if you look closely you can see that it’s also welded to be able to create the compound curves. Someone put in a lot of work to make these things!

 

 

Chin Scoop

Talk about a work of art.  This piece is absolutely gorgeous.  This is the chin scoop that is directly aft of the prop and spinner.

 

The Cost of the Stewart 51 Parts?

I know you are all wondering, who much did all these Stewart 51 parts and goodies set me back.  Well, in true Stewart 51 parts fashion, none of this come cheap.  As much as I’d like to provide you a break down of all the parts, but now at I’m posting this on the blog (actual date of this post is 10 June 2016) seven years after, I can’t immediately locate the individual parts breakdown.  When I do, I’ll update this post with greater detail.

Parts Sub-Total: 13,179.57 USD

First Deposit (50%): $5599.00 USD

Final Payment (50% + Crating/Shipping & Fumigation): $7580.00 USD – $9,830.52 CDN

Cargo Handling / Brokerage: $73.30

Canada Customs Duty: $2,179.37 (OUCH!!)

Grand Total: $17,682.19 CDN