Still Building, Yet Still Studying

Well it's been a long time since I've posted any progress on here, but we are still movin along on the project. I've just been getting ready for CFI tests and have been devoting my time towards that. I want to have my certificate done and out of the way before the next semester of school starts so for now this is my priority, but Dad and I shall be priming wing skins here within the next week if weather is ideal, lately it's been too windy to lay down any primer. Sorry for the lack of posts, but don't lose faith in us!

Getting Ready to Seal the Tanks

Another productive day, we got a lot done! Continuing on the tanks we finished the installation of the vent lines and the capacitive senders. These weren't too difficult to install except for feeding the wire through the notched snap bushings and tightening the screws on the outboard capacitive senders. We also were able to get the flop tube installed in the left tank. Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture of how we safety wired the flop tube to the elbow AN fitting but it turned out looking great. In the next couple of days we'll hopefully have sealed tanks!

Finished Installing Ribs in Fuel Tanks

Well it's been quite a while since I've posted anything new on here, but good news... all of the ribs are in the fuel tanks! Yes we have continued to work on the project, so don't lose hope in us. We've actually been making some pretty good strides in our progress! I've been busy with other things outside of RV building lately and haven't had the motivation to post lately but it's been too long since I've written!

These past few weeks we've been working away on the fuel tanks. These things are so much work! It's definitely messy work too. To have all of the ribs in is definitely a relief. We've had a few RV builders check out our work so far and they've all said the look like the shouldn't leak. Now all we have to do is finish the vent line and install the capacative fuel senders. These things are already almost complete so we should be sealing the tanks up soon!

To take a little break from the fuel tanks, we fabricated the pitot tube out of the supplied soft aluminum tubing. This thing was a piece of cake, we just double check how it is installed since you have a drill a hole through the main spar.

Continued Sealing Left Tank

Today when we got to the airport Dad and I saw that old Hangar 4 was being torn down. This wasn't a surprise because there's been talk about it going down for about a year now but it's sad to see. It was 1 of 2 remaining historic hangars on the airport. There were originally 5 but they were lost to fires along with some beautiful aircraft. Insurance companys don't like insuring wooden hangars anymore I guess so it had to go.

Well last time at the hangar Dad and I got a couple of ribs riveted in the left tank and today we continued the tedious process. But before we got messy with sealant we were ready for a new little project. We cut some AWG 18 wire to 15" and soldered the BNC connectors to them. These will connect the capacative fuel senders to a fuel transducer inside the fuselage. It was a short project but fun, and good for a change of pace! I haven't soldered for about five years but today Dad said my connections turned out perfectly. We still have to do the piece that interconnects the two plates inside each tank but we still need to obtain a proper wire crimper.

Once our soldering was complete we moved back into sealing some ribs. Not too much to report on these, we did the same process as the past two ribs. We weren't able to get more done but we're still happy with our 2-ribs-a-day progress. They're turning out quite nicely too if I do say so myself.

More Fuel Tank Sealing

Well today Dad and I delved into sealing ribs in the left fuel tank. In our previous work session we got the stiffeners, fuel tank filler, and fuel drain sealed and riveted into the left tank. Today we wanted to catch the right tank up to this stage so we got to work on that. While our rivets soaked in an M.E.K. bath in our Starbucks Expresso bottle we got prepared to rivet. We followed the same procedures that we used on the left tank except for one exception. Instead of using -4 lenght rivets for the drain, we went down to -3.5s. Reason for this is that the -4s were too long and tended to "lay over". We're not going to worry about this though since the drain is a non structural component and it's battered up with a good amount of sealant (which is also a strong adhesive).

Once we caught the right tank up we moved on to riveting the interior ribs for the left tank. This proved to be more difficult than the stiffeners since you're working in a more confined area. We put the skin in our cradle and clecoed in all of the ribs minus the one that we would be working on. This is recommended so the fuel tank stays straight and maintains its shape. We mixed up our sealant and got to smearing! Before we did though we scored the flange (and previously the skin) with emory cloth to provide a prime adhesion surface, once we were done with this we made sure to put a thick layer of sealant along the whole flange of the rib. Once it had a good layer we slid it in and put a cleco in every hole to pull it tight. Our riveting process had us rivet the front half of the bottom of the skin, then the full row of rivets on the top, and then finish the remaing half of bottom rivets. Van's tells you to rivet from front to back in order to eliminate slack.

We were able to finish two ribs today which made us happy! They are definitely a lot of work and we shall get back to work on Thursday.

Fuel Tank Sealing

Well today after work Dad and I thought we'd begin to tackle the job of sealing the fuel tanks. Needless to say we've been dreading this task for a while. Tank sealant isn't exactly the easiest or cleanest stuff to work with. Before we began to mix up some sealant we put the whole left tank together for a dry fit (minus the vent line) to see how everything went together and to make sure if there was enough clearance between the capacative senders and the stiffeners. Everything looked good so, Houston, we have clearance! Once we were satisfied that everything would go together smoothly we began to scuff the rivet lines with medium grit Emory cloth. We did this to promote better adhesion since the rough surface creates more surface area. After this we used Coleman lantern fuel to clean the tanks off. This stuff works pretty good, it takes up all of the oils and leaves no residue. It doesn't smell too bad either like M.E.K. or anything. After we had the skins cleaned up and our tools all sorted and prepared we started to mix the tank sealant. We used our small digital scale and measured the stuff out cup by cup. It's mixed in a 10:1 ratio and it took a couple of attempts to get comfortable with working with this stuff. It's like tar. Extremely thick tar. After mixing for a couple minutes the black hardner was mixed with the white base and we were left with a dark grey substance. We followed the tapes instruction and had the stiffener rivets taped in place (we did four stiffeners at a time) then we smeared the stuff in nice thick layers on each stiffener and set it in place. Then we backriveted them and went back over the shop heads to make sure that we had a good seal. We repeated this a few times and had all of the stiffeners in place and set. After the stiffners we put the fuel drain in place and set its six rivets. This made a mess because sealant oozes out of the holes from both sides and gets all over your squeezer. Have an old rag soaked with laquer thinner to do some quick clean up for your tools and anything else you might need. After the fuel drain we moved to the fuel filler flange and smeared a bunch of sealant on it. We put it in place and put the vent clip on the very front rivet. We got these rivets bucked and decided that's all the time we had for the RV tonight. We cleaned up all the excess sealant with a rag and some laquer thinner and are now just letting it cure! I'm glad we only did one tank tonight. It gave us a chance to get used to working with the sealant and didn't overwhelm us. In a couple of days we'll be back out to do the right side! Also, sorry no pictures tonight. We left the camera at the house.

Fuel Tank Prep

Today before work Dad and I thought we would prepare the fuel tanks for their sealing. So we did just that. I still have a couple of questions on the capacative senders and the vent line but we still got a lot done today. We had already drilled the filler caps to the tanks a few days ago, but that's all we had done to them. We took them off and I got to countersinking them. While I did that Dad taped in some rivets so we could back dimple all of the holes that needed it. Once we had the filler all in place we moved on to the drain sumps. These were pretty straight forward. I just used a square and drew a line through them from front to back and we lined the holes on the drain up with the line. No one will ever see them, but at least they're symetrical! While we were on a roll we wanted to keep going and get as much done as possible. We dimpled the perimeter screw attach holes with our squeezer and they turned out great (Van's says you get better results with a C-frame but I don't know how.) Since I had to work at 3 today, we left enough time for us to watch a Fuel Tank Sealing tape. The thing was shot in the early 90's most likely but hey, it's still relevant and we both learned a lot! After that I had to leave for work and Dad got to work on notching out the vent line snap bushings, he did a nice job on them and that was all we were able to get done today but we're happy!

Aileron Work!

Wow, what a productive today. We started with a pile of primed parts and ended up with completed ailerons! Two of them!

After some breakfast and coffee at the airport cafe, we headed over to the hangar. To our surprise our hangar partner's car was there and his airplane was gone. Not too common that that happens, but hey, more hangar to us!

Since we hadn't gotten too much work done on our poor RV lately we really wanted to make some progress today. We were having some problems yesterday riveting the nose ribs to the aileron spars, our rivets kept on folding over on the shop end side. FRUSTRATING! But today we decided we would try as many solutions as we could until we found one that worked. Previously we had been squeezing them, which never gave us problems before, but the rivets that Van's calls out seemed a little long. We trimmed them and tried that, no luck. After a few times drilling them out from the shop end side (no access to the manufactured head) our circular holes had become quite oblonged. Not an ideal shape for a solid rivet to be set in, so we decided we would make a couple of plates to cover the holes. This worked previously on other parts of the project, but this time we set one rivet and the plate just folded up because the rivet sucked it into the hole a bit. Our only other option was to use some strong blind rivets. We drilled the holes out to 5/32" and put those suckers in. They filled up the hole and made the part very strong. Finally something worked!

We continued on and riveted the leading edge skin to the trailing edge skin and the spar. Initially this proved to be tricky, and a little painful. It took a while to figure out how to fit your hand between the bottom of the aft skin and the spar to get a bucking bar in but we finally devised a way to get it done. Dad held the skin on its trailing edge and I shot and bucked the rivets. Once this was done we riveted the nose ribs to the top half of the leading edge skin and then the main ribs, once these are done the assembly gets flipped over and weighted down. The counterbalance weight gets blind riveted to the skin and the ribs get finished being riveted to the skin. Once everything else is done you finish it by "closing" it with blind rivets along the bottom of the spar. Once the left flap was done we moved onto the right and banged that out. Only this time we had better luck with squeezing the larger rivets and we had a better understanding of how we wanted to do things!

If only all days at the hangar were like this, productivity feels great!

Busy, with work other than RV work.

Unfortunately I don't have too much new to post. I've been busy studying for the CFI certificate and have been devoting most of my time to work and that. Though we have completed the flaps, which was movivating! They look great and they feel bulletproof. Our right flap ended up having a 3/32" twist in it, but that's so nominal we can't imagine it having any noticeable adverse effects. Tomorrow Dad and I are both off and we hope to get some work done on the fuel tanks, though today after flying the 150 for a couple of hours I noticed a large accumulation of oil on the belly. The dipstick didn't show a loss of oil so until we check it out, it remains a mystery where it is coming from. Nice weather is forecasted so we'll see how it goes.

Fuel Tank End Ribs

Today Dad and I figured we would get cracking on the fuel tank pick up tubes. In the last post I noted that we would have to make a new hole for the flop tube, which would be located at the front of the inboard rib, and not on the access plate. We had already cut out the hole for the standard pick up tube in the plate and instead of making a cover for the hole, Dad fabricated a beautiful brand new one out of some .060" stock that we had. It looks great!

The hole up for the flop tube was a multi step process. Our unibit only goes up to 1/2" and the fitting was significantly bigger (I can't remember the diameter) so we used ours, and then finished the hole with our friends larger unibit. We had to do this for the rib, the angle bracket, and the backing plate. There is a proper position for the fitting noted in the plans, but we didn't see this until after we had cut the hole. Lucky us we were within 1/16 of an inch!

After we got the hole done, I had to head to work but Dad stayed at the hangar and continued to make some progress. He was able to cut an anti-rotation bracket for the right tank pick up and he also made the trap door that fits over the corner hole on the interior rib. After that he made the bracket that goes over the left side inspection plate so the flop tube doesn't get hung up. We still have the othe one to make that fits inside the bay.

All in all, today was a pretty productive day!

Fuel Tank Update

Today we received our new "flop" fuel line from Van's. The craftsman ship on this is beautiful! It really looks like high quality stuff, not that I didn't expect it, but it still impressed me. Though after looking at how it is mounted to the root wing rib, I realized that it mounts to the very leading edge of it. We already cut the holes in the access plates and we'll have to make a plate to cover the hole in the left side access plate. No big deal, but I'm glad we're starting to figure out how this thing attaches and functions.

Left: Our new flop tube!

Right: The left angle that needs be cut to accept the 90 degree fitting for the flop tube.

We might take care of this tomorrow, but we want to get the ailerons riveted together to get some parts out of the way! I'll have to be leaving the airport around 2:30 for work so we'll see what we can get done! Looking forward to manana.

Priming!

Finally! A day that Dad and I both had off and the weather was good! The weather forecast called for 65 degrees today but it ended up being about 72. We knew we were going to be able to get a lot done today, and we did! After the ritual breakfast at the cafe we headed over to the hangar to get to work.

We started by rolling all of our stuff out of the hangar (work bench for parts and paint, saw horses, air compressor, etc.) We used our normal process of preparing our parts, they were all previously Scotchbrited and we started with the Alumiprep today. Dad scrubs the parts to be primed, and I have the task of rinsing and drying the parts, then we set them all in position on our saw horses on top of a metal grate. There were a few clouds hiding the sun, but they blew in and out. Once the parts were all cleaned we immediately got to mixing our two part epoxy primer. This stuff isn't as nice as the self-etching stuff in the can, but it gets the job done. It took a good couple of hours to get all the parts primed and covered well. We primed the parts for the flaps as well as the aileron skins, a couple of wing ribs, the fuel tank baffles, and some fuel tank brackets. The difficult part is finding the spots that you missed. The primer is almost exactly the same color as the milky-white Alumipreped metal so you have to let it dry, then angle it to the sun to find the bare spots. It felt good to get these parts primed though! We've been waiting to do this for a while.

While we let the parts dry, we cleaned up our work area and got some stuff put away. We primed the aileron skins so we would be able to get the stiffeners (previously primed) riveted to them, and that's exactly the next step we did. We used the backdimpling method the plans call for and continued to work outside since it was such perfect weather. Our method consisted of filling four rows of rivet holes with rivets, taping them and then backriveting. Once the four rows were finished, we'd fill the next four rows and reuse the tape and so on. This way we were efficient and fast. Once the stiffeners were riveted we decided to call it a day and get heading home. The next step was to finish the bend in the aileron skins and our homemade bending break was at the house (it's already in the truck ready to go for tomorrow though) All in all we had a productive day, and only one rivet had to be drilled!

Priming Prep

Today I met Dad at the airport and we decided to get all of the parts ready for priming. They're all pretty much prepared but we organized them into a pile for when we'll be priming. Also I took a friend of ours flying today, it was his first time being in a small airplane, and he had a blast! He'd been in airliners and a C-130 before, but nothing along the lines of a 44 year old Cessna 150. Needless to say it was a new experience for him. No need for any pictures tonight, everything mostly looks the same, except for the left fuel tank skin, which we dimpled today. Hopefully we'll be able to prime on Thursday!

Dimpled Right Fuel Tank

Today the only work we were able to really do was dimpling the right fuel tank. We used our normal method of back dimpling and while we were doing this I remembered that there are special dimple dies out there specifically for the fuel tank skins. Why? Well the fuel tank dimple dies put a deeper dimple in the skin to allow more room for the tank sealant. We spoke with our friends Jack and Dwayne to see what they thought. They suggested that since we had already dimpled a whole fuel tank skin that we take our deburring tool to take a bit of material out of each dimple. This would allow enough room for the tank sealant and for the rivet to sit flush. After a bit of trial and error using slow electric screw drivers and countersink bits, we ended up using the deburr bit in its handle. A few quick twirls took enough material out to let the rivet sit deep enough. We've realized that this is a common (not mistake or error, but phenomenon?) with many RV's out there, if it isn't dealt with, you are left with rivet heads that don't sit flush and are high enough for you to feel with a finger nail. Not the biggest deal, but we want our wings to be smooth so we'll be putting in the extra effort up front!

Inboard Fuel Tank Ribs

After breakfast at the cafe today Dad and I had to take care of a couple of errands but once they were done we headed over to Smitty's to pick up some of the two part epoxy primer so we could start getting some more parts primed! Though today's weather wasn't quite good enough to use it.

Dad and I began working on the inboard fuel tank ribs to get the ball rolling with them again. We started by cutting the access hole in the rib with the flycutter. This was my first time using this tool. Like everyone says, make sure you have the part you're cutting clamped down extremely good. This thing could take a part and throw it accross the room in a second I'm sure. We changed the belt on the drill press for this and set it to the lowest setting, this helped a bit with controlling this beast. After the ribs were cut we clamped the access plates to them and match drilled the holes. Once the plate is drilled the ring goes on next and the platenut holes get match drilled. We realized that there was a bit of rib left inside the ring on each so Dad cleaned them up with the Dremel and got them perfectly equal with the ring. We deburred everything and decided to call it a day, it looks like we'll just have to wait for some nice weather so we can get some priming done! Until then we're in limbo.

Flap Skin Preparation

Well today before work I tried to get as much done on the flaps as possible. Yesterday Dad and I had already started dimpling the skins and the skeleton for the flaps, so today I decided to get these things all knocked out.
I was able to get all of the ribs and spars scotchbrited (if that's a word) and finished deburring all of the holes. Once this was done the dimpling continued. I finished all of the edges with the hand squeezer and picked up were Dad left off on back dimpling the skins. All in all it was a productive day for the time I had, and therefore I'm happy!

Busy Day!

Today Dad and I were able to get a lot done today on the project. Since we've reached a bit of a hiatus with the wing we decided to continue on the flaps. I've been working alone a bit on the flaps the past couple of days but today we were really able to slam some work out. We started by drilling the skeleton to the bottom skin and drilling the hinge for the right flap. When we first tried drilling the hinge a couple months ago we really overthought it and decided to let it sit for a while. But today we just dove in and finished that task. They look good! When it comes time for attaching the flaps to the wings we're going to split the hinge pin in half and bend a 90 in each which will then attach to the flap brace, making it easier to remove later on.







Another project for the day was to fabricate the FL-706A brackets and to bend the FL-706B brackets. The 706A's are made from 125 x 1 1/2 x 2 aluminum angle and they support the inboard section of the flap where the linkage connects. A couple of passes on our band saw and a few swipes on the deburring wheel and they were ready to be drilled. I started by clamping the 706A to the flap spar and match drilling it. Once this was done, it got clecoed (while being drilled) to the spar. The next step was to put a 6.3 degree bend in each 706B, one will be bent up and one will be bent down (right and left). After trying a bending brake and failing I headed over to our friends hangar to seek help. He suggested a vice and together we decided to use a 1/4 drill bit and a set in the vice to put the bend in the piece. After a bit of trial and error, we were able to get them lookin' perfect. I took these back to the hangar and clamped one to the flap spar and clecoed it to the inboard rib, once this was done it got drilled. After everything is drilled, the aft most hole (not the tooling hole) gets enlarged to 1/4" for the bolt that connects to the rod end bearing. Once all together it feels really strong!

Dad was able to get the skins all devinyled and once this was done we deburred all of the holes, inside and out and dimpled some of the skins. These flaps are really close to being primed and riveted together. Thursday we should be able to pick up some more primer from Smitty's eventhough the forecast for the week looks crummy for painting.

Countersinking Fuel Tank Skins

Continuing from the past couple of days, we picked up on the right fuel tank. I had the T-405 angle all drawn up from Monday and just had to cut it out. With a few swipes on the band saw and about fifteen minutes on the bench grinder we had our second one done! To get the hole pattern on the second one I just clamped them together (they mirror eachother) and match drilled it. Once we had both of our brackets ready, we clamped them to the inboard ribs of the fuel tank and match drilled them. We made sure to leave a bit of room between the angle and the skin since there will be rivets being set right there. It looks like enough room for a shop head, but if we need to we'll just put a few notches in the angle once the rivets are set. After the rib itself was drilled, we clamped on the T-410 plate and match drilled this, yes we match drilled a lot, but it provides the best results!

The plans call for the fuel tank skin to be countersunk where the baffle attaches to it. We weren't sure if we were reading this right because skins are normally dimpled since they're so thin. This skin was .032" so it wasn't as thin as others, but we still decided to research this a bit more. We found out that this was correct and the reason for this is to make it easier to fit the baffle in upon final completion. It has to slide into place and if it were dimpled it would make it more difficult get into position. I'm guessing they want these steps to be as quick as possible since you're using Tank Sealer.

While I did the countersinking Dad finished devinyling all of the rivet lines on the skins for the tanks and they are now ready to be dimpled. Towards the end of the working day I got acquainted with the capacative fuel senders. I finally have an understanding on how they work and they seem pretty simple. At least there's not going to be any moving parts in our tank! Except for maybe a flop tube, and trapdoor..

Tomorrow after work I hope to continue on the capacative senders and get the tanks ready to be sealed! Eventhough we have the tanks ready for the most part I feel it'll be a little while before we're ready to start the sealing process, which I hear takes a few days to do correctly.

And yes, I cut my hair. FEELS GOOD.

Right Fuel Tank

Well these past few days Dad and I have been continuing our work on the fuel tanks. Once the left tank was mostly done, (still have to countersink the skin where the baffle attaches) we started the right tank and now both are at the same stage. We've just been forgetting the camera! Tomorrow we should be able to get the tanks ready for the capacative senders!

More Fuel Tank Work

Another productive day today! As always the day started out at the cafe to have some breakfast and load up on coffee. We met our friends there and after breakfast decided to head over to their hangars. After a few minutes of talking with our friend Dick he offered to take me up in his RV-6. I couldn't say yes fast enough! What luck, he let me taxi, takeoff, maneuver, and land! After we took off we head out to do a few maneuvers and turned back to practice some touch and goes. After him doing the first one he let me in on the techniques he uses for slowing down and what airspeed to aim for on final. The first few weren't exactly perfect but they were suvivable. My fifth and final landing was almost a greaser! All three wheels down at the same time; if that's not motivation to continue the build I don't know what is! What a great ride, and it was only my second RV flight to date. Got to log that one.

After the ride it was time to get back to the real world. Dad and I headed over to the hangar and got to work! The fuel tank skin was still clecoed to the spar from yesterday so we continued from there. If the skin doesn't match up perfectly with the spar/baffle/leading edge, then you're supposed to elongate the holes that you previously drilled through on the baffle. Ours however came out perfect! Just a couple of holes had to be re-drilled to make the baffle fit a bit easier to the brackets. The plans call for the ribs to be clecoed to the Z-brackets and the baffle, then match drilled. After using the long #30 drill bit to get these done we headed out to lunch.

We took off the ribs and clecoed them to the skin. Man the tank looks (and feels) awesome with the ribs in it. Once they were in the assembly goes back onto the spar to be drilled to the W-423 joint plate. We did this and decided to drill all of the holes in the skin (this was where we made a mistake). The plans say to only drill the joint plate while the tank is on, this way you don't accidently drill into the spar. Well dummy me missed that part of the plans. After we pulled the tank off we noticed we nicked the spar a bit with the drill. About five nicks got put into it that will need to be sanded/buffed out. They're not critical, but we don't want anything that can develop into a crack on our spar! I sanded them down a bit and they're already pretty rounded off, but I still need to get them perfected out.

With the tank off we finish-drilled the tank attach holes with a #19 drill for the attach screws. This thing is looking awesome! While I'm at work tomorrow Dad's gonna head over to the hangar and start devinyling some skins and dimpling a few parts. After work I plan on countersinking the tank skin for the rivets that attach the skin to the baffle. We're making progress slowly but surely!

Fuel Tank Work

Well today before work I decided I would continue working on the fuel tank skin for the right wing. I began by marking the stiffeners to be cut then got this finished in a jiffy with our bandsaw and our friends 30" shear. Thing works great! After they were cut roughly to shape I took them to the Scotchbrite wheel and rounded off the corners. The plans call for you to cleco the stiffeners to the skin and match drill them, then put the assembly onto the spar. So that's exactly what I did! Even without the ribs in I could tell the fit was going to be awesome, it's amazing what match-drill manufacturing can do. This was all I was able to get done today so I decided to finish there and head to work. Sad day! If only I could stay at the hangar all day.

Leveling, Leveling, Leveling

Well today was all about preparation. As the title says, we spent most of our time leveling.. and driving all over town. We started out at the cafe as usual and got some breakfast with our friends then made our way to the hangar to see what all we needed to pick up. After that we decided to go to Home Depot to pick up a few things as well as a digital level since all of our levels are a decade old or so and beat up. Once we were at the depot we saw that prices of things have gone up so we decided to go to pay a visit to our friend Rick at trusty Ace Hardware! We picked up some aluminum angle for supporting the rear spar in the wing stand and we got a couple of eye bolts for the tie downs just to see how they fit. It looks awesome! Along with that we got a couple of plumb bobs (which we found later that we really don't need) to do some vertical squaring.
We headed on over to Sears to get the level and found a nice Craftsman for $35, it even beeps and tells the temperature of the room! This thing speaks two types of degrees. What else could you want from a level? After we finished there we headed back to the hangar to put our new tools to use. We found that our spars were about 0.2 degrees off at each end and we got this down to 0.0. We also modified our way of supporting the centers of the spars to keep the droop out. We continued using the hydraulic bottle jacks but decided to just use the screw portion. One of them was losing pressure over night and when we got to the hangar in the morning we found our blocks of wood on the floor. So now we have a longer 4x4 on top of the jack supporting the spars. Between the 4x4 is a 2x4 to spread out the weight more evenly. Our new way is fool proof! After that was set we decided to cut our aluminum angle to make the supports for the rear spar. In the process of cutting them our blade completely dulled and stopped cutting. I made a quick trip to Home Depot and picked up a new one, only to find that I got the wrong one. Well Dad and I went back and got the correct one and were able to get back to work. New blades cut so much nicer! We got our supports cut and mounted them to our wing stand in their proper place. After that we decided we should call it a day.
Productive day, just not as productive as we planned.
Update: We found a few builders have stressed about getting the 1/2" of twist or so out of the wing before putting the skins on but read that this is unnecessary. Clecoing the (pre-drilled) skins to the skeleton is supposed to pull it all square and not require manually taking the twist out. We'll see how this goes on Thursday and see if we do or do not need the plumb bobs.

Wing Drilling

Well these passed few days we've been getting quite a bit done on the project! Both wing walk doublers are cut and dimpled, all of the skins (except for the tanks) are drilled to the skeleton, and Dad's gotten all of the skins devinyled where needed. Teamwork! This part of the process is really exciting because everythings starting to look like something! It is a lot of repetitive work, but it's definitely fun. Tomorrow after work I'll be meeting Dad back at the airport and we'll get back to work!

Wing Walk Doubler

Today after work I headed straight to the airport to meet up with Dad. He was already waiting at the hangar and was get ready to work and so was I! We already had the wing skeleton in the stand but all we had to do was get it jacked up precisely to take the sag out of it. Got that done and started on the next project. Van's says the next step is to cut the wing walk doubler to size so that's exactly what we did. The plans call for the .025" sheet to be cut to 26" x 9/38". They also say that the doubler should overhang the rear spar by 1" but with it cut to 26" it only hung over by about 1/4". I wasn't too sure why this was or if it was important so I just cut it approx. 1" long. A couple of quick cuts with our friends brake and a nice wing walk doubler we had! After looking at other builder's websites tonight I found that everyone is cutting them to 26", next time I'm at the hangar I'll make sure to get that done.

Once we had the doubler cut we clamped it to the top inboard wing skin and match-drilled it. Then we were able to start clecoing things together. It's starting to look like a wing! We made quite a bit of progress tonight with the limited amount of time we had (we needed to get home to see the new Discovery channel Flying Wild Alaska) and we're definitely happy.

Another productive day

After some quick breakfast and socializing today, Dad and I headed over the the hangar to continue where we left off on Tuesday. How lucky are we to have two of the same days off this week? We had to take advantage, and we did!

Today was much nicer weather wise and was perfect for priming. On Tuesday we didn't have the best of experiences with the primer, but today was much different. We were able to get the gun set up properly and we also thinned out the primer quite a bit. Last time too much was being laid down, but fixed that problem. Having a fine touch and a not too anxious trigger finger makes for a much nicer result. Instead of it being blotchy, our end results were smooth and even. It took us a while to get all of the bare metal covered though, the metal is almost the exact same color as the primer in certain light, so we had to look at it at quite a few angles.

Once the parts had a nice coating on them, we let them bake in the warm Californian sun. After about an hour the parts were ready to be handled and we started clecoing the ribs to the main spar. After a few minutes it started to look like a wing! Well, at least the skeleton of one... After making sure all of the ribs were in the correct place we started looking up rivet call-outs and got to riveting! It seems like it's been forever since we've set some of our favorite fasteners. The manual calls for the manufactured head of the rivet to be on the rib flange side, causing less distortion once the rivet is set. Once we started riveting we noticed that the anodization began to spider-web around the rivets we had just set. We called up the Van's builder assist hotline and asked them about it; turned out this is perfectly normal. The anodizing is just an extremely brittle coating on the spar and there have been no problems caused by this phenomenon. We continued on and after about 40 minutes of riveting the ribs were all mated to the main spar! We didn't spend too much time admiring though, we still had the rear spar to do as well. There are less rivets on the rear spar, and there's quite a few you have to leave blank for future assemblies to be put on. Once the rear spar was fastened we decided to pick the whole thing up and slap her onto the jig! After all, that's what it's there for. We got our jack out and pumped up the middle of the wing assembly until it was level and looking good and decided we would leave it there for the night. Tomorrow, the right wing!