Left wing main skeleton riveted together, match drilling right wing underway!

Lots of helpers this weekend; who says you can't look stylish while building an airplane?!

(After these 2 pics were taken we moved the right wing to the other side of the rack to allow the top skins to fit over the racks)

Our good friends the O'Connors came over for the day, and Chris & I got to work mashing rivets on the left wing skeleton.

I shot (3x gun 45 psi), he bucked

I can't believe we haven't had to drill out a rivet!

Main rib/main spar rivets complete! 

Or as Chris is clearly thinking, that's right ladies, we are that good.



Next we threw on the left rear spar and squeezed some rivets.

Complete!

Left wing skeleton, never to come apart again.

I started measuring & cutting the right wing walk doubler from the AS3-025 aluminum sheet provided by Vans. Simple straight aviation snips did the trick.

I then lined up the doubler per the manual & did the initial match drilling, clecoing it right to the workbench. This is a technique they taught at the EAA SportAir Workshop I went to; not sure if I would have thought to try it otherwise.

Chris was busy finishing the clecoing of the right top skins and starting match-drilling.

Right wing walk doubler complete!

Chris's son Naish needed some man time and joined us in the garage. Nothing like power tools to make a guy of any age smile.

Right wing 25% match-drilled!

Next up will be clecoing the rest of the skins on, finishing the match drilling, catching up the left wing, deburring, and then moving on to leading edge assemblies.

All of a sudden we have more finished parts! And better yet our friends will be back in 2 weeks. Life is good.

 

Wings: 6 hrs

Memorial Day Right Wing Racked

After the usual Memorial camping and shenanigans we spent a couple hours reorganizing the shop and putting the right wing on the wing stand.

Our goal was to have skins temporarily on by Mem Day this year, and we made it! As it turns out we opted to switch the right wing to the other side of the rack afterward to allow the top outboard skin to fit without interference, but it's still exciting to see something that looks like it belongs on an airplane.

 

Wings: 2.5 hrs

Right wing rear spar riveted on!

Short session but big progress yesterday - first we drove the last four rivets in the right wing main ribs and spar.

I didn't want to attempt drilling out the 2 ugly rivets from last session because I was pretty sure I would end up with a huge and misshapen hole.

 I called Van's this week just to be sure that adding 2 rivets at this location (2nd main rib from the outboard edge) wouldn't cause unforeseen problems.

They said I was probably ok just leaving the 2 smeared rivets since they likely had 90% design strength, but as long as I had adequate edge distance adding 2 rivets was fine.

 My father-in-law Don Holley helped me drive these after I drilled & deburred the holes.

Don & I designed and built an oak dining room table in his garage a couple years ago, so it was time to move the party to my garage.

 Next we clecoed on the right rear spar and started setting rivets. We could reach all of these with the squeezer which made the process smooth & fast.

 Don & I took turns placing rivets & squeezing - and making sure we were using the right rivets.

 Natalie had to get in on the action for a bit, too.

 Finished!

 It's great to see the biggest finished piece yet - now I need to find a place to put it to do it all over again on the other wing...

 I started attaching the support brackets to the wing stand; these things are going to need some filing to knock down the sharp corners, and I'm thinking about sticking some tennis balls on the end to protect passers-by.

It was a great afternoon in the shop! Fun to work with Don again, and I'm looking forward to skinning these wings.

 

Wings: 2 hrs

Right wing main ribs riveted to main spar

Finally time to make some finished parts!

 

Right wing ribs clecoed on

 My buddy Brian stopped in to buck rivets - made the process much easier

 We started off slow, and managed to put some rather large smileys in two of the rivet heads. I'll drill these out, but the good news is the rest of the rivets went in without a hitch. 2 out of 63 ain't bad.

 Down the rabbit hole...

 Ribs permanently attached!

Attaching the rear spar will be a bit more interesting. We flexed the ribs out of the way quite a bit in order to shoot squarely, after I realized that I never ordered an offset rivet set. I'll be ordering one of those, and I suspect it will get a lot of use wrapping up the wings. It'll still be tight quarters, though.

 

Wings: 3 hrs



Left wing main ribs deburred, primed

We're enjoying our brief spring here in central PA, and the goal Saturday was to finish deburring the left wing main ribs. All the notches needed scotchbriting, and then they all needed to be scuffed, washed, and primed.

The stack below is FINALLY ready for washing!

 Primed the insides

 And outsides

 I spent a lot more time on this today than I expected, but at least they're DONE!

 

Wings: 7 hrs