Maria had to work a 28-hour shift over the weekend, so that meant it was airplane building time. I got a lot done and because of that I am ready to glue the leading edge skins down sometime this week.
I started the day by getting the fuel fittings installed into the tank. This is always a chore since there is no easy way to hold everything in place. But I persevered and got it done. With that done I was able to move on to getting the ribs into place. I got them all clecoed into place and then clecoed the rib stringers into place to make sure we were good to go. I then proceeded to rivet the ribs to the spar. Like the previous stringers, I needed to remove some material for almost every spot where the lower one riveted to the rib. The stringer was just too close to the rib and I want everything to last! I also installed the tip rib and got the stringer for it installed as well. Along with riveting the ribs, I had to finish up the aileron bellcarnk by riveting the bell crank rib reinforcement in, installing the aileron cables, and tightening down the bolts holding the bell cank together and to the plane.
After all that work, I final installed the fuel tank. With that done, I could rivet in the root and number 2 rib. DON’T FORGET TO DIMPLE THE RIVET HOLES FOR THE ROOT AND #2 RIB! You can make it work afterwards, but it is kind of a pain. I spent a lot of time dimpling the root skins and took a break for dinner. Had a friend come over afterwards to help with some more building. We finished dimpling everything that needed to be dimpled, installed the root skin reinforcements, and riveted the leading edge wrap stringer to the leading edge wrap. We then clecoed it in and finished the evening by installing the tip bow wrap. That one is always an interesting project. Easy, but interesting.
That wrapped up my Saturday and probably was about 7 hours of work.
On Sunday I worked and got the lower sight fuel fitting installed and then riveted in the lower root skin. Today I finished up by getting the flap teleflex cable setup and ready to be secured. That’s my last item to complete before I can rivet the upper root skin in and begin removing the anodizing from the spar in preparation for adhesion.
It’s going pretty good and I’m looking forward to starting on the fuselage.
(11 h)
