On Thursday, January 10, 2019 at 9:52:50 PM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
I'm with Herb (I know, alert the media) but I assembled my gliders for
over 30 years without the aid of a tool, except for the Mosquito which
came with a factory supplied tool.Â* What was I doing wrong?

On 1/10/2019 12:35 PM, wrote:
On Wednesday, January 9, 2019 at 5:21:20 PM UTC-6, OHM Ω http://aviation.derosaweb.net wrote:
You could be correct about the humidity changing the diameter of the dowel. However, a well seasoned and well sealed ash dowel may well not have that problem. Time till tell.

Again, this is a poor man's version of this tool. Easily finding the correct diameter metal or plastic/nylon rod, without machining capability, may be rather difficult.

Maybe I should have called this the "poor CHEAP and EASY man's spar alignment tool"!

My $0.02 (or ZWD 10,000,000,000).

- John OHM Ω
My contrarian view again (sorry John): All Schleicher gliders I have owned and operated assemble extremely well without this "aid". If you have trouble with your glider, it's more likely the mistake is with you rather than the glider. Have someone help you who knows what they are doing. Also, go put the glider together more often, get practice. Watch the Ridge Boys Striedieck, Seymour, Good et. al. assemble their gliders in their grid position at contests every morning in no time at all to understand what I'm saying..
Herb, J7

--
Dan, 5J

The difference is that the Schleicher gliders in this group have no taper on the end of the main pins, only about a 3 mm radius. This is due to the fact that they have no extra length to allow for a taper. If the alignment on assembly is not almost perfect, the first pin will not go in. The alignment tool helps with this. It is obviously possible to assemble without it but it is much easier with it, especially on a new tight glider.
UH