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!

Priming

Today we were finally able to get some priming done. We were skeptical at first though, since the weather wasn't exactly perfect but we proceeded to prepare the parts (i.e. Alumiprep, scrub, and rinse) and get them ready. Temperature was about 64 degrees, but there was a very high overcast. We figured we would be OK with the few patches of sunlight that occassionaly broke through. It was our first time using this new primer, which is an epoxy-based primer that is mixed with a hardener, it was also the first time we used our HVLP spray gun. Needless to say, our day was interesting and involved experimenting.

Preparing the main ribs and leading edge ribs (leaving out the fuel tank ribs) took us about two hours. Once we had everything prepared and set up we decided to plunge into the

priming. The new primer is completely different from the self-etching stuff that we're used to. It was almost like peanut butter until you got it completely stirred and mixed. We started off by mixing 5 oz. of the primer and an equal part of hardener and we thought this would finish most of the job. Not the case. After about 35 oz of mix we only got the top of the ribs done. We definitely have to experiment with the gun a bit, because it was just putting too much liquid out. Plus the weather wasn't perfectly ideal, so we decided to just leave it to the top of the ribs for today and call it a day. We took the three racks of ribs (not baby back) to one of the rooms of the hangar that we heated up with a space heater to help with the curing process.

Our next day off is Thursday so we'll see what we can get done then. Hopefully the weather is more suited for priming.

Counterbalance Work

Today once I got to the hangar I decided the only thing I would really be able to do was countersink the counterbalance for the ailerons. Tomorrow Dad and I are both off and will have a good day to get some much needed priming done! It's been too long since we've both had a day off when the weather is good so we're going to take advantage of it tomorrow! Once we have all of our parts primed we'll be able to start riveting the main ribs to the main and aft spars. We'll also be able to continue our work on the ailerons and flaps. Hopefully we'll be able to complete the bend of the trailing edge skin for the aileron as well. Tomorrow's going to be a productive day, I can feel it!

Able to get back to work!

Well it feels like it's been forever since we've been able to work on the project but it's been cold in the hangar! Well at least it's been a bit too chilly to work on it. But today we finished the T-712 fuel tank brackets and now have a large pile of parts that need priming! I won't be able to work on the project tomorrow since I'm flying up to Flabob straight after work for the monthly movie they play, but I plan to get back to work on it on Saturday.

Delays, delays

Well it may seem that I haven't been posting as much recently, but we haven't been having the greatest of weather lately..

The day wasn't completely unproductive though, we were able to spend some time cleaning and getting things ready, we also paid a visit to Smitty's paint store to pick up some epoxy-based primer. We haven't used this yet, but we've heard it's a lot better at adhering and is easy to work with. Once some better weather comes along we'll put it to the test!