Tools

The band saw has to be one of the most important tools I had at my disposal. It was necessary for cutting most of the angle parts. As I was plans building, there are lots of small parts to build. Most of the time I'd cut the part as close as possible, then use hand files and belt sander to remove the saw lines left by the band saw. I used a metal cutting blade with fairly small teeth. This gave me a relatively smooth cut and it was no problem to finish by hand. I didn't have good luck with the wood cutting blades that some use, they would not cut straight for me.	This band saw sat in storage for over 10 years but performed great durin the build. I used a metal cutting blade in it which was not that easy to find
Another ...must have. Combination belt and disk sander makes getting the rough edges smooth much easier	Usually after cutting with the band saw I'd move to the belt sander, then with a small hand file, I could get a really smooth edge on the part. This sounds like a long process but actually moves pretty fast if the saw and belt sander are used properly. Hand filing is minimal then. It's probably true that you can build a Sonex without these, but they surely speed up the process.
Drilling is of course a huge part of the building process. Nine thousand rivets have to have nine thousand holes to go into. The drill press is much more accurate than a hand drill, and much faster the repetive drilling in many parts of the plane such as the spar. These can be purchased for well under $100 if you shop around and you'll be glad you have it for sure.    Speaking of drilling, all my pilot holes were made with the dremel with a flex attachment. This allowed access to hard to get to places, and the high speed tool did not require hardly any force, so the piece didn't move so much as with a low speed hand drill. I always used the spring loaded center punch before drilling pilot holes, and they turned out nice and straight lines.	The drill press doesnt have to be an expensive one, for the most part this is light work for most any one that you find at the bargain tool stores
No better way to drill hard to get to holes than the Dremel with this attachment    The bending setup I used to bend the wing leading edges was a modification of others I saw on builders web sites. I did not have a concrete floor to anchor the bottom to, so to prevent the warping under pressure I installed a 2x10 under my work table. Then drilled a hole through the top 2x10 and through the PVC and table and the bottom 2x10. Then a threaded rod was installed in the hole with washers and nuts on both ends.    This was a dreaded part for me, I hated the thought of damaging one of those skins that took so long to lay out, but all went smoothly with this bending set up.	My set up for bending the wing leading edges. It takes lots of pressure to bend these large pieces

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