tailwheels

Unintended Adventures

Month: September 2015

Finishing the left wing

By

On September 23, 2015

In S-20

The time has finally come. The left wing is ready to cover. I can only do one wing at a time so covering won’t be until at least next summer. There have been obstacles throughout the process, but it has been a fun learning experience and RANS has a great airplane that is easy enough for almost anyone to build.

The last steps were gluing the leading edge wrap and upper root skin to the spar. This marked one of my more time intensive obstacles. I had a mishap on the leading edge wrap. RANS calls to use a board to press the edge of the wrap to the spar during the gluing. I had the board a tad low on the spar and it didn’t end up holding the wrap to the spar (picture below). This meant I needed to remove the epoxy and get it cleaned up to reglue. I probably spent 3.5 hours getting everything cleaned up. The second time worked great. My strategy was placing the board on the wrap and seeing where it needed to go to press the wrap to the spar without bending the wrap. I then marked a line above the board on the wrap so I could place it in the same position after I had the wax paper down (to keep the board becoming one with the spar). This worked out great. The upper root wrap was no issue as well. I recommend to anyone getting ready for this step to just take a look before diving in because problems here are fixable, but it takes up some good progressive building time. haha.

Next was to smooth the transition from the wrap to the spar. I used SuperFil from PolyFiber to do this. It’s really light and easy enough to put on. I probably didn’t do an awesome job and that led to a lot of sanding for me. But, it worked.

Maria riveted in the upper root wrap and we were DONE with one wing. The next one SHOULD go somewhat quicker and then it’s on to the fuselage.

The wing is being stored up at Green Castle while the other one is built.

Thanks to all who have answered my questions and Ed at the factory. They have been a great resource. I always wonder how they feel with some of the questions I have and another builder put it very nicely. Ed is probably like the local computer guy dealing with “older” generation and their computers/smartphones. This thing is foolproof if you know what’s going on.

(10 h)

   
    

    
    
    
 

The saga continues…

By

On September 4, 2015

In C140, Cub, S-20

It’s been forever since I have put up and update. I haven’t had a lot of stuff happening, so I waited until I got some substantial work done.

I’m at the point where I am attaching the metal skins to the root area of the wing and leading edge. This has taken a while due to various reasons. The tip wrap was confusing, but simple once you get it on and see what it should look like. That’s why I included copious pictures in the hope that someone may find it easier than me the first time around. The bottom root skin was final installed and lines were marked on the spars for where the anodizing needed to be removed so the sheet metal can be glued down.

I had a misunderstanding with what the tape on the rib to wrap contact area was for. That led to a call down to the factory where I’m sure they look forward to my very technical questions haha. So the foam tape is to smooth out the area so the edges of the areas that were fluted don’t deform the leading edge wrap. The first tape I had was heavey duty, but not very foamy. RANS mentioned that they have recently been using the kind of foam tape you use for poster boards. So, that was the answer and we’ll find out in a year or so if that works :-). Next step was removing the anodizing. I had a hard time figuring out the best way to do this. I’ll await the screams of horror, but in the end I put a flexible 80-grit sanding brush on the dremel and was very careful about how long I spent in areas. I don’t think it should cause any ill-effects and there doesn’t seem to be any deep cuts from staying too long in one area.

One issue that had me worried was that I had a few rivets that didn’t pull tight in the leading edge wrap stringer. They were loose enough to turn and move around. Not sure why that happened. In the process of drilling one out, it enlarged the whole. On the recommendation from another airplane person, I put a washer on the stringer side and called it good. Another issue with the wrap is that there were two areas in between ribs that exhibited “oil-canning.” I called RANS and was told that I could put an extra stringer in there and that should do it. Again, not sure why this happened. (Note: I decided to forgo this as it seems that some loose rivets were contributing to the issue.)

Something that I couldn’t find in the text or just missed was a hole on the forward part of the upper root skin. There is a hole on each side that must be transferred on the 1st and 2nd rib as well as the leading edge wrap. This may have been obvious, but since RANS does an awesome job with making my life easy, I didn’t want to just drill a hole that I couldn’t find reference to.

Another task somewhat completed was the fuel cap assembly. I got it attached although I’m going to wait to break open my fancy DOW 730 sealant until the other wing is ready. Then I will sell it (maybe) and make $10’s of dollars (maybe).

On a somewhat related note, the group I was in that owned a Cessna 140 and a Cub recently dissolved and the planes have been sold. A recent endeavor to go back to school while working and building a plane should take up most of time though. I’m still instructing and part of a club, so I will still have some airplane access although not as cheap. So ends the first chapter of pseudo airplane ownership.

(10 h)


  
  
  

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