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

Right wing ribs primed, Left wing match-drilled

It was great to be home for the first weekend in a while! I continued deburring wing ribs, and tackled drilling conduit & wire runs for the tips. First a sophisticated template to mark the drilling location with a spring-loaded punch,

 Then drill to #40

 Followed by #30 

 And then upsized with stepdrills

 To final dimension of 3/4" (below) and 5/8" for the tooling hole near the rib root.

 My buddy Chris came over and got all the glamorous work: washing, drying, & priming ribs.

 Ready to go!

 Not bad for a squiddie.

 While the primer dried we match-drilled the left wing main ribs.

 Rear spar first,

 Followed by the main spar.

 While that was happening I drilled the tooling hole in the main spar for the stall warning device up to 3/8".

 Deburred, bushing installed. Too easy.

 Prime(d) rib!

 Chris's boy Naish heard there were power tools and had to get in on the action.

 We also got the leading edge ribs match-drilled & deburred, the main spar hole deburred, and Chris knocked out all the hole deburring on the main ribs. This stuff goes much faster with help!

We had an awesome day, got a lot done, and are ready to rivet the skeleton of the wing. Almost time to skin that beast! Can't wait to have Chris & family over again to help.

 

Wings: 7 hrs

Left wing tiedown installed, left wing skeleton assembled!

Last weekend I worked on the left tie-down bracket, having received the replacement bolts I ordered from Aircraft Spruce. Brian Judge also came over to help deburr some of the right wing main ribs. And then we got distracted fixing up Erin's car...

 

So we were back at it this weekend, got the left tie-down bracket bolted on!

 Then I worked on the replacement rear spar reinforcement plate, edge-deburring it last week, clamping it in place this week:

 Match-drilling:

 Countersunk, deburred, scuffed & cleaned, ready for primer:

 And then Sam came out to squash some rivets!

Since I had some extra hands and the weather was nice, we assembled the left wing skeleton:

 Like mother, like daughter:

Sister act...

 And don't worry Adam & Rochelle, your ribs are together (and right behind the gas tank - you're welcome, Adam!).

 Parting shot - look closely at the lightening holes...

We accomplished a lot today in pretty short order; of course, once these holes are match-drilled, we're back in the deburring doldrums. Ah well, we're not far from hanging these puppies on the wing stand - and time to skin 'em! Crazy.

 

Wings: 4 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