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Stewart 51 Parts – Another Big Shipment Arrives

April 9, 2009 by Mike 2 Comments

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).

S-51 Parts Shipment

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.

S-51 Parts

 

Talk about nice work!  These parts are beautiful!

107 - resize

 

Engine Cradle Parts

117 - resize

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

123 - resize

 

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.

Stewart 51 Parts - Spinner

 

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.

S-51 LE Wing Skins

Canopy Frame

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

 

Stewart 51 Parts - 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!

 

Stewart 51 Parts - Gear Doors

 

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.

Stewart 51 Parts - Chin Scoop

 

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

 

Please comment. As always I love to hear from my readers.  Thanks again for coming along for this ride, you make my work worthwhile.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Parts Shipment

Comments

  1. Nick says

    October 2, 2017 at 03:39

    Hi Mike,
    I’m a S51 builder from Brisbane Australia, great blog, its nice to see how another builder is going about with his build. I’m the 4th owner of my kit, I bought it 3 yrs ago from a farther and son in Omaha, Nebraska, since it arrived in OZ I’ve been busy rebuilding some of the sub par workmanship from previous builders. I’m still working away on the Hori Stab, I’ve borrowed some of your tricks with setting up the hinge line.
    Where did you get your chin scoop, was that from Bill.
    Cheers,
    Nick.

    Reply
    • Mike says

      January 12, 2018 at 16:36

      Hi Nick,
      Great to hear from you and thanks for your comments about the blog. Sorry its taken me so long to get back to you. It’s been a while since I’ve logged in to update the site. I’m glad I’ve been able to help by providing some tips and tricks. I got my chin scoop from HPAI in the Czech Rep back when they were still in business. Keep in touch, I’m also on the builders group. I’ll send you an email there so you have my contact. Don’t hesitate to drop me a line if you have questions.
      Cheers,
      Mike

      Reply

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Profile Photo 1 Hello - My name is Mike and I'm a true believer that if you can imagine something, it's just a matter of bringing it into reality.

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