Main Wing Ribs and Rear Spar
March 25, 2006
Pulled in the rear spar into the shop along with the W-707-E, F, and G pieces. The Reinforcement fork comes from the factory pretty tweaked and you have to bend it in to get it straight. I clamped the pieces to the rear spar and lined everything up. Then you back drill through the un-punched parts using the spar as a guide. You also must trim off the excess from the reinforcement fork and reinforcement plate at the root end of the rear spar.
Here is the Rear Spar reinforcement fork.
And the rest of the rear spar reinforcements.
March 26, 2006
Went to Lowe's and picked up some 4x4's to get the wing stand going. Today was a short day though, I deburred all of the parts that I drilled from yesterday.
March 27, 2006
Finally got my primer from Spruce. Although the can reads "Green" and I thought I was getting the "Yellow" stuff. Used a router attachment for my Dremmel to route out the odd shaped aileron pushrod opening in the reinforcement plate. Deburred that piece in short order. Clecoed on the main ribs to the rear spar so I can drill those before I prime the spar. This thing is starting to get really big and the wing stand will definitely be going up soon.
Used the Dremmel with a router bit and stand to route out the Aileron Pushrod opening on the rear spar reinforcement.
April 1, 2006
The joke was on me I guess because I cannot find my #30 countersink. I was pretty miffed that my CS was MIA. Had to order a new one so the only thing I got done was cleco on the main ribs to the front spar and final drill those. I ordered two of the #30 CS's so that I can use one for fiberglass only. Also ordered a #40 reamer and a few other miscellaneous things. One of the items I ordered was a really cool book on airframe structural technician and I guess my riveting standards are just fine because I cannot believe some of the things that mil-spec and Boeing consider acceptable.
April 2, 2006
Drilled the main ribs to the rear spar and sat it up on the table for the really cool shot. The first picture is how I will see the wing most of the time from the perspective of the pilot. Second shot it was flipped over to check fluting straightness after being clecoed together. Everything lined up nicely.
Things are really starting to get big! Before I know it, I will be trying to maneuver around a huge wing in the living room.
Jenni took this picture only because she thought the one on Dan's website was really cool.
April 7, 2006
Bought some blue conduit from Lowe's. It looks the same as the stuff from Van's but might be a few ounces heavier. Since I only have 2 wings and these two 10' runs are all I am using, I am not too worried.
I made a template from some scrap wood to match up the tooling holes for the ribs so that I could step drill the holes that I needed to run the conduit. I really need to personally thank Dan Checkoway for all of his inspiration throughout the project.
Here is the template I had. I know its not the whole rib but it did the job perfectly. It is a piece of scrap from the Cozy project, specifically from the fuselage jigs. Funny thing is that it followed the top contour of the main ribs perfectly.
Disassembled the whole structure so that I could get ready for the daunting task of prepping and priming all this stuff. This is going to suck.
April 8, 2006
First thing that morning I went and got the I drilled out the conduit hole using a step bit and took it out 13/16 and used a sanding disc on the Dremmel to final size it. Next was the daunting task of deburring the ribs. This was a two step process. First I would use the disc on the die grinder for all the ribs then I took the 2" 3M wheel to the lightening holes to debur those.
I then prepped all 14 ribs, rear spar, reinforcements and tie-down brackets. Primed 10 of the 14 ribs, tie-down bracket, rear spar and reinforcements. This little chore took all day and I was whipped afterwards. I also bought a Tap and Die set to tap the tie-down brackets.
That night I could not resist, I had to tap something. So I clamped the tie-down to the table and oiled up the tap and was able to tap the hole beautifully. I then riveted the tie-down spacers and nutplates to the tie-down bracket. I was walking around the house the rest of the night in my best Castaway voice proclaiming, "I have made threads". Hey, it was the first thing that I have ever tapped in my life. Never had the need to actually make a threaded hole.
You can just barely see the threads in these pictures.
April 10, 2006
I woke up the next morning sore from all the bending over and kneeling and getting up from the aluma-prep and prime session but I had to get it done. I mixed up another batch of primer and while that was doing its chemical thing, bolted and torqued on the tie-down bracket to the left spar. I then torqued on the aileron belcrank brackets.
Its a little fuzzy in the second picture but you get the point. I then put my torque seal on the bolts and called those good.
I primed the last 4 ribs and hung those out to dry. I then went back and checked for any ribs that needed touch-up.
At this point I am ready to start putting this beast back together for the last time. So I started assembling the rear spar and squeezed the rivets on the reinforcement fork and two reinforcement plates. You must be careful to not rivet all of the holes because the aileron gap seal, flap brace and some of the ribs still need to get riveted in. My trick was not tape, it was cleco's. I just clecoed in the holes where I was not supposed to put in any rivets.
Here is the reinforcement fork
The inner aileron reinforcement.
And the outboard aileron reinforcement.
Here are a couple pictures of the riveted reinforcement fork.
After what seemed like an eternity of not working on the airplane, we finally got the main ribs riveted to the main spar and rear spar. It just seems like life gets in the way of airplane building more often than I want.
After Oshkosh 2006, we had a renewed sense of wanting the plane done (60 hours in the truck will do that to you). So when we got back, we upgraded the air conditioner in the shop to a 18,500 BTU A/C unit and now we can get the shop down to 70 if we were so inclined. I know, we did it at least once.
So when I got home Jenni and I spent a good 3.5 hours in the shop and riveted the main ribs to the main spar. This was a chore because Jenni had to get on top of the monster table and buck the rivets while I was on the side shooting. We also clecoed on the rear spar and I will tackle that the next day.
We didn't have too many problems with the ribs because we could push them out of the way and get the rivet gun on there nice and firm. There were two smiles that I felt needed replacing and and one buck tail where the bucking bar slipped on Jenni (twice). All in all, I am very pleased with the way the rivets turned out.
Here is a Picture of the completed Left Wing Skeleton
I managed to get the rear spar rivets squeezed on in short order, although it did take some effort to squeeze the rivets where the reinforcement fork was at. Those long rivets do not make for an easy task.
We bought a pneumatic squeezer on eBay for $85 shipped. It seems to work and looks like it will serve the purposes we want it for (namely dimpling the ribs at this point). The cool thing is that I was able to get my 3" yoke from Cleaveland Tool on there with no problems and it works great.
This weekend, I built the wing stand and that was a big effort in itself because you have to make sure that everything is square and level before you put the wing on there and make sure that is square and level.
This is the Top of the wing stand, I did this so that I minimized the damage to the ceiling and could get a solid piece across two trusses to screw the 4x4 post into.
Here is the inboard bracket for the main spar. I just cut some angle stock to size so that the mount would not interfere with the skins.
Up next on the agenda...Mount the skeleton in the stand and attach the wing skins.