Left wing leading edge attached!

We had a great Father's Day Weekend camping at Leonard Harrison state park (PA); saw bear, deer, waterfalls, and clouds in a pretty cool gorge they call the PA Grand Canyon.

 

We had enough time when we got home to tackle the stall warning assembly mods on the left wing leading edge. Nat was a big help!

 With the access attach doubler match-drilled, I worked on match drilling the skin at the leading edge. Not sure whether the VA-195 template is necessary given the pre-punched holes, but I looked at it as a tool to prevent elongating the holes.

 Once those holes were drilled, devinyled, deburred and dimpled, I marked lines to file out the stall warning vane gap.

 The diamond-shaped detail file I have was just the right size - as seen by the keyhole shape in the background.

 Rough finished!

 Filed & scotchbrited

 I also drilled to #40, deburred, dimpled & edge-deburred the VA-195F mini rib.

 With the girls occupied I stole a few more minutes to cleco the left leading edge ribs into the LE skin. Couldn't have done it without the clecos they bought for Father's Day!

 And...2 wings! Almost. These came together pretty quick, I have to say...which makes me wonder what I'm missing.

Great weekend, noticeable progress, and new tools (clecos & the rolling stool seen in the background of a couple pics). What more could a dad ask for?

 

Wings: 2 hrs

Rear spars deburred, primed, right rear spar riveted!

With Grandma entertaining the kids I made great progress on the wings on Sunday.

 

First up I deburred the holes in the rear spars and dimpled the top flanges where the doublers would interfere.

 

Right spar deburred:

And the left:

The squeezer yoke left some light scratches in the spar web, as you can see below, but they buffed out ok with some aggressive scotchbriting.

Parts scuffed, washed & dried - ready for priming!

And primed.

While the primer was drying I riveted the nutplates & spacers to the tiedown brackets.

More finished pieces! (Yes, I primed the back of the spacers after the above photo)

I was able to cleco the rear spar assemblies together in preparation for riveting.

And started driving rivets! Right rear spar W-707F complete (ordered the replacement for the left, should be here this week).

Right W-707E complete

Note the orange tape "flags;" translation: hey dummy, don't rivet here!

The girls came out to help place a few rivets & check on the progress - didn't catch them on camera this time.

 

Then: rivets were squoze.

I had some other helpers/inspectors (hecklers?) come out after the girls went to bed. They were quickly enlisted for cleco removal, rivet placement, etc.



Isn't she beautiful? Also: my wife.

Yes, the factory heads (domed part of the rivet) face two different ways. Standard practice is to place the factory heads on the thinnest material. I forgot to do this when riveting the double-doublers, but corrected myself for the rest of the W-707Gs.

 

Research suggests this isn't a serious issue, and since the rivets are set well, I'd risk enlarging the holes if I chose to remove & replace them. One more lesson learned.

This is what the other side looks like. I plan to prime it once the rest of the attachment holes are match-drilled.

With the right rear spar complete and the left complete but for the W-707F replacement, we wanted to see if this pile of parts would go together like the picture says.

Mom realized that reading blueprints is basically the same as playing with Legos.

I shuffled things around,

And Erin clecoed the ribs to the spar.

Hmm....

Look! It flies!

Way cool. Also discovered we should attach the ribs to the main spar first, then the rear spar. And there are a few rib to rear-spar holes at the inboard end that don't appear to line up.... not sure why, and I need to do some digging to figure it out.

All things considered, it was a great weekend of work, I'm very thankful for all the help I had, and we finished with some mashed rivets and something that looks like it belongs on an airplane. Thanks everybody! 

 

Wings: 5 hrs



Elevator deburring, dimpling, priming

With the girls out at a tea party I finished deburring and dimpling all elevator parts (sans trim tab) and scuffed, cleaned and primed them.

I scuffed the counterbalance skins but caught my mistake before I primed the outside. Good thing I'm painting this plane!

Next up I edge-deburred both skins and dimpled them. There were a couple of hard-to-reach holes that I need to build a reach stick & hit with the dimple die in the rivet gun.

I also drilled the last holes in the skins where the fiberglass tips will attach to #30 and deburred and dimpled them, as I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to get in there after the elevators are riveted up.

Two piles of parts, ready to go!

I'm going to hold off on riveting the right rudder so I can close it up over Thanksgiving with family that will be in town. I may continue with the left including trim tab & trim assembly in the meantime.

 

Empennage: 7 hrs

Elevator match drilling, disassembly, deburring

With the rudder buttoned up, we switched back to match-drilling the elevators.

I fitted the elevator control horns to the respective spars and match drilled the holes to #30.

Next up was match-drilling the skins to the understructure. These 1" and 1/2" jaw cleco clamps made matching up and drilling the non-factory punched holes a breeze.

I had some help disassembling the right elevator...

But the left was on me.

We finished the day with 2 piles of parts ready for deburring, edge finishing and dimpling!

Brian Judge came over for a couple of hours Saturday to help me puzzle through fabricating the support brackets for the wing stand. No pictures, but we carved up a lot of aluminum angle preparing for it.

Sunday we were back at it with Erin deburring & stripping rivet lines while I machine countersunk holes in the main spars, end ribs and E-606 top flange.

Many builders modify a microstop countersink cage to access holes close to the rib flanges, but I found that careful use of a manual hole deburring tool with a countersink bit gave me a clean result - in come cases better than my drill press with the cage installed!

Another good couple of sessions, more parts ready for priming, and a daughter who said she had a fun weekend and wished we had another day. Can't ask for more than that.

 

 

Empennage: 7 hrs