Left Wing – Top Skin

It's time to put the top skin on the left wing to get it ready for final drilling. The inboard skin and wing-walk doubler are already in place. The outboard skin goes on next because it overlaps the inboard skin for two closely-spaced rows of rivets (one row goes into a rib and the other … Continue reading Left Wing – Top Skin →

Left Wing-Walk Doubler

With the left wing's main section up on the stand, it's now time to start working on the wing skins. The first task is to cut and drill the wing-walk doubler. This is a piece of aluminum sheet that goes under the top wing skin on the inboard section of the wing. It adds reinforcement … Continue reading Left Wing-Walk Doubler →

Riveting the Left Wing Main Ribs

We had a warm day and I took advantage of it to get the left wing's main ribs primed. I used a different method of metal prep for priming that saved me a lot of time. Instead of scuffing and acetone-cleaning each rib prior to priming (the method I've used up until now), I used … Continue reading Riveting the Left Wing Main Ribs →

Setting up the Wing Stands

I will soon need to mount the main wing sections onto a set of wing stands for construction. I've borrowed a set of steel stands from another builder in my area. I spent this build session familiarizing myself with the wing stands and doing a preliminary setup and placement. I will set the stands side … Continue reading Setting up the Wing Stands →

Aileron Drilling

I'm still on my detour, working on the ailerons while I wait for the weather to get warm enough to prime all of the wing ribs and get back to assembling the main parts of the wings. The next task for the ailerons was to final drill the stiffeners to the aileron skins. This is … Continue reading Aileron Drilling →

Trimming the Aileron Stiffeners

It's too cold in my garage to prime the main ribs, so I'm going out of order to get some tasks completed that I will need later. In this session, I trimmed all of the stiffeners for the ailerons. These are just like the stiffeners in the rudder and the elevators, except they are all … Continue reading Trimming the Aileron Stiffeners →

Riveting the Wing Rear Spars – 2

In this building session, the rear spar riveting was completed. Here are the pictures of the completed spars.

Riveting the Wing Rear Spars – 1

We had a day of warm (70F) weather during which I was able to get the rear spar components primed. This allowed me to start setting the first rivets on the wings. I need to rivet together the rear spar components to get ready for the building of the main sections of the wings. Here … Continue reading Riveting the Wing Rear Spars – 1 →

The Leading Edge Cradle

I've spent a few days doing work on the workshop. I added some lighting so I could move my tables to the side and make room for the wing stands. This evening I built the leading edge cradle, which is used to hold parts together during construction of the outboard wing leading edges and the … Continue reading The Leading Edge Cradle →

Drilling Left Wing Ribs and Spars

This evening I assembled the left wing skeleton (main and rear spars to the ribs) and began final drilling the rivet holes for rib-to-spar attachment. It was inspiring to see the whole wing clecoed together. Here are some shots from this session: In the first image, you can see the main ribs connecting the main … Continue reading Drilling Left Wing Ribs and Spars →