Before closing the bottom skin of the right wing, I found that the Flap brace needed to be countersunk. So we start with that, meanwhile my Dad worked on the piano-hinge of the Flaps, trimming them to the right size. With the Flap brace countersunk and spit-primed, we started to […]
With the Ailerons finished, I can now start with attaching, fitting and adjusting them to the wings. If you carefully place them in the outboard “bay” of the wing, it stays there, so you can attach them with the bolts. You have to make spacers from Aluminum tubes provided in […]
Riveting the leading and trailing edge skins to the Aileron spar is not easy. Probably the best way is a custom (formed) bucking bar, which I don’t have. I only have the tungsten bucking bar, which is really great, but lacks the ability to reach narrow places. I could reach […]
Last week I primed all the Aileron parts (on the inside) and wasn’t able to spend more time on them. Now I can start assembling the Ailerons. First step is riveting the stiffeners to the skins. This needs to be done before bending, or else there is no room for […]
I underestimated the amount of work with respect to deburring, scuffing, dimpling, countersinking, degreasing and priming. I thought I could do all this in one straight session. Especially priming is something I need to plan, because after that I can’t use the workshop for a few days (insufficient ventilation). It […]
With the Aileron Stiffeners trimmed in the previous session, we started clecoing them to the Aileron skins. I marked them prior to attaching them to the Aileron, but I found that is actually a stupid method. During drilling I found that there is one hole extra in the bottom side […]
Prior starting to the Ailerons, we finished some last details on the wings. My dad checked all bolts one more time and sealed them with Torque Seal. That is NOT Lock Tite ore something similar, but just to “mark” the bolt as being Torqued (and not loosened again). Next task […]
Yet another major step in the wing assembly, riveting the top sin to the left wing. Although the 500+ rivets sound like a lot of work, once both the riveter and bucker have the routine down, it’s actually going very fast. There are about 4 different lengths of flush rivets […]
With the top skin riveted to the right wing, I started attaching the Aileron brackets, the aileron fairing and the flap brace. I also worked on the push rods. Scuffing the 167 cm Aluminum push rods with Scotch Brite pad results in beautiful push rods and great hands. I love […]
Finally we can start riveting the top skin to the wings. We start with the right wing. Many tasks can be done by yourself, but riveting the skins to the wing is really hard if not impossible. There are places that would be really hard to reach if you do […]