Wing Top Skin – Part 4

Fairly short update, even if it was a lot of work. After prepping the wing and tops skins, started to rivet everything together. Started working with my wife using my new extended back rivet set. This left the skin looking great, but I kept having some rivets with smeared shop heads.

I even went and purchased a double-offset backrivet set, however I was even having some issues with that. I gave it a good try and it seemed to be somewhat working, but in the end I decided that just having my buddy and wife use the rivet gun and I control the bucking bar was much faster and easier to control. (Even if it did mark up the skins a little).

After each rivet session, I would go back the next day and re-check all the rivets with a fresh set of eyes. I would always find some marginal rivets that needed another hit with the bucking bar, or possibly a few that just needed to be drilled out. No biggie and better to do it now rather than when the wings are on the airplane! (Blue tape marks where I need to touch something up) [inpost_fancy thumb_width=”200″ thumb_height=”200″ post_id=”803″ thumb_margin_left=”0″ thumb_margin_bottom=”0″ thumb_border_radius=”2″ thumb_shadow=”0 1px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2)” id=”” random=”0″ group=”0″ border=”” show_in_popup=”0″ album_cover=”” album_cover_width=”200″ album_cover_height=”200″ popup_width=”800″ popup_max_height=”600″ popup_title=”Gallery” type=”fancy”][/inpost_fancy]

Once all the rivets were in, I then riveted on the nutplates at the wing root, followed by the aileron bracket at the wing tip. Then with a little help from the wife I moved the wing back to the cradle. I’ll need to finish up the leading edge light lens for the left wing, then get some assistance to rivet the leading edges to the wings to make sure I have room for the fuse arrival.

Wing Top Skin – Part 3

Finally jumping back to finish off the left wing. With a little assistance from my wife, we turn and move the wing to my workbench to begin prepping the skins for final assembly.

After deburring both the wing skins, I begin to deburr all the ribs. I ended up getting one of the “in and out” deburring tools online and used it for a good section of the wings. I’ll admit that it did a decent job without taking too much material off. I may use this for more of the build going forward.

I then move the wing so I can install the 4 rivets that I didn’t install earlier between the spar and ribs. I spoke about this in the previous post regarding the top skins as the plans were not clear on these rivets.

Next, I started to dimple the ribs, J-stiffeners, and the wing skins. Using the sawhorses, some 2×4 and felt mats allowed me to quickly get through the dimple process without any drama. I’m actually starting to get better working in the somewhat limited space I have.

I then mount the skins, J-channel, and wing-walk stiffeners onto the wings. Next I have to verify my countersink cutter is properly adjusted so I can countersink all the holes common with the wing-walk stiffeners. This makes a complete mess and lots of aluminum shavings!

Finally I take the time to mark anything longer than a 3.5 rivet on the skin so things will go faster once I get an assistant to help me rivet. I’m looking forward to using my new back-rivet sets to see if I get any better results vs the last time.

Wings – Odds and Ends

Well, I’m getting to the point where I was expecting that I would be putting in my fuselage order, however I’m not quite as far along as I wanted to be.  Granted, working on the wings is a slog and at points I really need a second set of hands.  I was spending a number of weekends working on my IR this year, and spending time with the family.  Overall it’s been pretty busy, but I’ve accomplished a lot outside of my -10 build.  

So looking at what I still need to get done, and the calendar, I realized I’m running out of opportunities to prime parts.  Amazingly there was a forecast day of 60+ degree weather with average humidity.  Decided I needed to just knock out a few things including priming. 

I revisited the rivets on the outer leading edge that my EAA tech counselor pointed out and marked which ones needed to be drilled out or just get another hit with the rivet gun.  Then with the help of the wife moved the wing so I could get access to the skin followed by fixing all the “problem” rivets on the OLE.  

Prep for the skin was pretty easy.  Verified that all the holes were deburred, edges were deburred and used my orbital sander to give a slight scarf on the skin edge per the plans.  (I was not super aggressive so I’m sure the joint will be visible.  Honestly don’t think it’s a big deal).  Then using a ScotchBright pad and the orbital sander, I lightly scuffed the whole skin.  

Next I prep all the landing light parts.  Mask off the front of the light housing to be more reflective?  Not sure it’s helpful, but I like the way it looks I guess.  (Sorry didn’t film the priming, but it’s just a wipedown with acetone followed by AKZO spray primer outside).  

Top Skins – Part 2

So this is really the time when you need a rivet buddy.  I know others will tell me they were able to do it all by themselves, but honestly I didn’t want to make too many errors trying to do it myself.  The result was that it took almost 2 months for me to complete the top skin on the right wing.

Some observations and things I’ll do differently on the left wing.

  1. As nice as backriveting looks, I’m not going to do that again.  I feel like I drilled out too many rivets that just didn’t set correctly with the back-rivet set.  Most likely due to me not being good at using the offset back rivet set, or do to the fact there is limited space to set these rivets.
  2.  Do more rivets myself when possible.  Basically a there are some areas that you can rivet solo (near the rear spar and on the outboard and inboard ends).

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Top Wing Skin – Part 1

With the rear spar completed, I began laying out the top wing skins.  I located the j-stiffeners that I drilled earlier in the project as well as the wing walk doublers.  I initially clecoed the doublers to the ribs, but realized that wasn’t helpful as the skin goes over them.  I then use my trusty broom handle to remove the blue film off the skins and and start to cleco the skins to the wing. Read more