This time however I did rivet the Rear Spar almost in parallel with the Main Spar. Also I used the squeezer, that worked great with the short rivets (smaller than AN470AD3-7) the larger however failed several time.

I’m really pleased with the rivets on the Main Spar this time they were all great so I didn’t need to drill and reset any of them.

The Rear Spar was not so successful, At the inboard side, the thick doublers where harder to rivet with the squeezer. I had to drill and reset seven rivets and in the end I used the rivet gun and the bucking bar.

Here you can see the result of the rivets that I screwed up with the squeezer. Normally the result of the squeezer is better than the rivet gun, but with these thick doubler plates it didn’t work out.

Now both wings are done with the Ribs, next stop is fitting the skins.

Also this week I ordered the Roll Servo bracket, so I can install that in the right Wing, when the skins are still off and installation is easy. Actually installing the servo will be done later (I hope).

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets: 51/2 (2018-05-30)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets: 69/5 (2018-06-03)

Video

I clecoed all the ribs to the main spar, however during riveting I found that the first three (wing walk) ribs on the inboard side should be added while riveting. The space between the ribs is too small for a rivet gun.

With the rear spar in place it starts to look like a piece of on airplane already.

Many holes on the rear spar should NOT be riveted right now. They are riveted in conjunction with the Flap brace and the Aileron gap fairing. I have no idea what these are, but I’m sure I’m going to figure that out in the coming weeks. For now I put cleco’s in these holes to prevent accidental riveting.

Since it has been a while for me when riveting (I try to use the squeezer whenever possible), I screwed up several rivets in the beginning. After a few rivets I regained my “feeling” for the task.

A nice look along the bottom of the left Wing. Again the conduit hole is lining up nicely.

I had to reset three rivets, because I was unhappy with those. They were probably ok (note to self: make photo’s), but since the rest was much better looking, I decided to drill them out and reset them.

The outboard four rivets are flush, because the Aileron hinge bracket is placed on top of them (according to the drawings).

Almost finished, I didn’t complete all rivets on the rear spar. However I stopped pushing for daily goals and started to just enjoy every day I can work on my plane. Sounds mushy, but I tend to make more screw-ups when I pressure for I specific goal, which cost even more time.

Time: 6 Hours, Rivets: 96/3

Time: 1 Hours, Rivets: 22/2

Video

This post combines the priming of the wing ribs and riveting the rear spar components together.

Here’s the result of the rear spar doubler plate in the middle. The strange shaped hole is actually correct and it should accommodate the movement of the aileron push rods.

This is the rear spar inboard side with several doubler plates. The holes that are not riveted are used for attaching the ribs.

Primeing the ribs I did without the help of my daughter. I only have one face mask and even if I had two I wouldn’t allow my little girl to enter the spray cabin. It smells too toxic to be careless with.

Time: 6 Hours, Rivets: 113/7

The accompanied video has a very small section on the tie down, but somehow I forgot to start the main camera, so I only have limited video of my backup camera.
Main topic this week is the deburring of the wing ribs.

First task (or at least on my list) is to place all the parts (wing ribs) in the correct order. This might seem trivial, but the annotation left and right on the parts have nothing to do with the wing. Both wings contain left and right annotated ribs and even worse some specific left ribs are for the right wing and vice versa.

Done, leading edge ribs in the front. You can recognize the tank ribs (the ones without the lighting holes). Let’s start deburring this pile of aluminum.

First step is to use the “multi-purpose deburr tool” to deburr the lighting and tool holes in the ribs.

Step two is using sand-paper to smooth the edges of the holes.

Step three is using sand-paper to smooth the edges of the flanges.

Step four is straighting the flanges, to make a 90 degree angle.

Step five is removing the labels with the part numbers and writing the numbers on the parts (with a Sharpie). Half-way I promoted this step to step one (shifting the rest down).

Step six is straighting the rib itself. The ribs are “bent” by Van’s due to the production process of bending the flanges. You can straighten them with fluting pliers, making little dents in the flanges.

I use an aluminum profile (normally used to keep trailing edges straight), to “measure” the straightness of the rib. You can see the little dents in the flanges.

Done, all the ribs of the left wing are now deburred (four hours of work). I didn’t straighten the inner and outer tank ribs with the fluting pliers, as I’m not sure if this will not make sealing the tank harder.

Time: 6 Hours, Rivets: 16/0

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 0/0

Video