Main Spar Construction
This is my first foray into airplane construction and it is nice to be working on something other than the empennage. I am sure that this comment will be made when I am done with the wings.
Some of the things that I did in preparation of this is to flute the main ribs and leading edge ribs. I also identified the orientation for the spar's themselves.
Here is the Right Spar laid out for me to orient. Sorry for the blurry, it just could not focus with the plastic on it.
Here are some pics of the wing kit in our storage area (a.k.a. Family Room)
I have been fluting ribs. What a chore. I spent 5.5 hours one day doing nothing but fluting ribs (flute, check, flute, check, flute, check). I was glad to be done with those. If you ever over-flute a rib, it is simple enough to make the correction using your hand seamer.
And here are all the wing ribs fluted (minus the tank Ribs). I did not want to do those without reading further ahead and making sure that I am not screwing something up. BTW - all of the green and orange things on the carpet...a donation from our youngest (Justice). Believe it or not we do vacuum daily.
Here is Justice escaping
...and Playing.
March 9, 2006
Pulled the right main spar into the garage tonight after cleaning up the shop and taped the joint between the main spar and the reinforcement that is riveted to it. This was an idea from Dan Checkoway.
March 10, 2006
Here I go...I am working on a part that would likely cost me several hundred dollars to replace. First thing to do is to final drill the #40 holes for the rivets that will hold on the nutplates. Then I pulled out the microstop countersink and set my #40 countersink to a shallow depth and drilled the first hole, pulled out an AN4263-4 to test and worked my way down until the rivet set flush. Now that I had the countersink depth set I worked my way down all the #40 holes on the bottom of the right spar. I then flipped the spar over and did the top of the right spar. Lots of mess gets made during this part so I was using the shop vac every dozen holes or so. No sense in scratching up the spar with these shavings.
Ok, so I got all the #40 holes drilled and I know what is coming next. I made a pilot guide with a 1/8 scrap piece of aluminum and tried the first hole with my #30 Countersink. I pulled out my test skin to see if I was getting deep enough and was not getting it to sit flush. This was starting to frustrate me so I emailed the list and asked them what I was doing wrong.
March 11, 2006
After sleeping on this I checked the email list and Dan Checkoway to the rescue. Dan told me to rivet in all the nutplates first. This has to work. Turns out my test skin was slightly bent and when I tried it again, it was sitting just fine.
Alan and I clecoed on all of the nutplates and then we squeezed all of the AN426-3-4 rivets. The nutplates are now in. Holy cow what a process we had going. We would cleco on one side of the nutplates and I would start squeezing the rivets for that side and Alan would start clecoing on the other side. Then I would come over and squeeze those rivets while Alan pulled out the cleco's on the side I just squeezed. Then we would switch places and I would do the other rivet on the nutplate while he removed the cleco's on the side I just did. I finished up by squeezing the last rivets on the spar and then we set out to countersink the holes for the #8 dimple.
I put my #30 CS on and tried my luck. Hey, 4,300 RV builders were here before me and obviously there was success at some point in their lives. I worked my way down and got the correct depth with the CS and the nutplate served as a pilot for the #30 countersink perfectly.
Fast forward 7.5 hours and Alan and I had completed both spars for the #8 tank skin holes and #6 access plate holes. Although we had to bring the right spar back out into the shop because I forgot to CS the holes for the W822 access plates the first time I had it out in the shop.
Boy was I glad to be done with this part. Jenni was a little disappointed that there was nothing to work on when she got home and we had to go to bed early because we were working in the morning. Kind of sucks because I have a sneaky suspicion that I wont get any time in the shop on Sunday.
The bottom hole there is the one that got enlarged slightly. You can even see where it was a bit choppy. Don't worry, I cleaned that hole up and it looks great.
March 13, 2006
Tonight was a quick hour in the shop. After locating the K1000-4 nutplates I needed for the forward face of the spar and drilling for those, I countersunk for the rivets and squeezed the nutplate rivets on. I then moved on to the fabrication of the tie-down spacers and tie-downs themselves. I knocked out the spacers in short order and ground down the tie-down brackets. I then measured and marked for the initial hole on the spacer. (DO NOT DRILL MORE THAN ONE HOLE WITHOUT USING A BOLT TO ATTACH THE FIRST ONE TO THE SPAR - You will UNDERSTAND IF YOU PAY ATTENTION TO THE PLANS.) Not much for fit on these things. The plans even show the overlap the tie-downs have in relation to the W-706C spar reinforcement so I suppose I am doing it right. It says in the plans that my aileron brackets go on the other side. How cool is that! More control surfaces. Oh...well I work on that more tomorrow.
March 20, 2006
Tonight was a night for drilling the tie-down brackets and spacers. Had to clamp the tie-down to the spar and get the other holes drilled. The best approach I found was to clamp the tie-down to the spar using blocks of wood to prevent scratching the spar and then drill the 4 outboard holes. The next step was to clamp in the spacers and start to drill both holes. Once you get these started, pull them off and use a drill press to finish off the holes. This way you are not scuffing up or enlarging the holes on the spar.
Then you have to put that back together and make your final #12 holes through the spar/spacer/tie-down. It actually worked out pretty well and then I pulled it all apart and clamped the spacer/tie-down combo to the drill press and drilled the #40 holes for the rivets. I would love to start prepping this stuff for priming but the AKZO primer I ordered from Aircraft Spruce is still not here yet.
March 21, 2006
I made the second tie-down (left) and it took me 1/2 the time to do because this time I was repeating my steps and incorporated the used of more wood blocks, etc. on the drill press. Jenni came out to see if she could help and saw the small work the I was doing and realized that little fiddly-bit stuff is really a 1 person job. After I was done with the spacers and tie-downs, Alan and I moved the main spars back into the house for storage.
I used the drill press to make the lightening holes in the spacers and that worked out better than I expected. Boelube and even pressure made short work of the spacers.
Here is a picture of the spacer in the drill press - I call it "The Mess in The Press"
Tomorrow will be the rear spar prep. Oh ya, we will be moving the monster table to the one side of the shop to make room for the wing stand. Depending on how far I get on the rear spar over the next 3 days, I might be building the wing stand this weekend.
March 22, 2006
No work on the plane, just moved and re-shimmed the monster table. That was 3 hours I will never get back. I guess I will repeat myself from yesterday, "Tomorrow will be the rear spar prep." I hope. I did pull out the pieces and get them oriented. I will be working on the left side first, then I will do the right side. I also ordered some of the torque paint from Spruce. That way I can mark all the nuts that are already torqued; this stuff is just to use for inspection. Depending on how long the primer from Spruce takes, I may move forward with the fiberglass tips just so I can get those out of the way and play with the micro slurry.
Up next Main Ribs