I need to crack open the left tank to install an anti-rotation bracket on the flop tube. Waiting for fresh proseal and new AN fittings arrive, I installed the right tank, torqued the tank attach bolts, and installed the tank skin-to-spar screws. The shimmed area on the right wing came out much better than I expected…
Shimmed area on right tank
While waiting for the replacement aileron skin to arrive, I started on the aileron spars and reinforcement plates. The plates are fabricated from 0.040″ sheet, and match-drilled to the aileron spars. The only trick here is making sure that the spar orientation is correct…outboard vs inboard, left vs right.
I also bent the right aileron trailing egde using the bending brake mentioned above. The piano hinge I bought at Home Despot looked to be a good idea at the time, but after a couple of bends I noticed that the hinge eyes were flexing a lot and not squeezing the trailing edge as I would’ve liked. Before I bend the left aileron, I think I’ll replace the piano hinge with regular heavy-duty door hinges.
There were just too many things going wrong with the left aileron skin so I bit the bullet and ordered a new one, plus stiffeners, from Van’s. Chalk the $50 in parts up to experience and practicing patience…
Riveted ailerons to stiffeners today. I must be out of practice with the back-rivet set, because I had several drillers. Grrr…
Got the ailerons and stiffeners primed today…
Captain John stopped by today and we finished the last riveting that needed to be done before the wings come out of the jig. With the tanks off, we riveted those inboard leading edge shims in place and I must say they came out very nice. Won’t be able to tell how they worked until the tanks go back on.
Shim in place…
We also finished the last few upper trailing edge rivets, the ones that can’t be squeezed. And with that, the upper skins are completely riveted.
Happy New Year! I celebrated the start of 2008 by doing something that I had managed to avoid in the last three and a half years – I missed a rivet hole while dimpling the aileron skins. Van’s said press on, so that’s what I’m doing for now.
When I built the elevators, I did the final trailing egde bends on Dave Rogers’s bending brake. I didn’t have access to Dave’s brake for the ailerons, so I built my own per Vans’ instructions, out of 2″x”8 lumber and a long piano hinge I found at Home Depot. The piano hinge turned out to be not such a great idea, it’s just a little too flexible – but more on that later.
After finishing the brake I started match-drilling the ailerons and stiffeners. Nothing new here, but I did take a picture anyway. And that’s all I have to say about that.
I decided to get started on the ailerons today during a lull in wing skin riveting. The first step on the ailerons is to trim and edge-finish stiffeners. I didn’t take any pictures, but if you go back and look at stiffener fab for the elevators and rudder, you’ll get the idea.
We’re getting ready for a holiday trip to South Africa and we’ve been working hard to get the upper skins riveted on so that the wings can come out of the jig. I had great help from Ellen, Captain John and Kevin Johnson. Even my mother-in-law stopped by…
World’s coolest mother-in-law
Ellen did a great job bucking with the tungsten bar…
Upper wing skins riveted
…and I had all sorts of fun with the Sioux 2X gun.
Upper wing skins riveted
The only technical comment I have here is that, as is usally the case, Vans’ rivet callouts were too short. I up-sized the rivets where necessary to get good shop heads. There are a few things left to do on the wings before they come out of the jig, and those require some skilled help – so until they’re done, I’m starting on the ailerons.