Category: Wing Ribs

First, this update is a little late in being published.  Don’t worry, I have been making progress and should have more updates shortly.

With some work on the leading edges done, I moved back to the wing ribs to get my right wing ribs attached.  First I assembled the ribs on the spar, then started to mark and drill the holes for the conduit attachment pieces.

After moving the spar to the workbench for better access, I began to attach the tie-down bracket to the spar.  Only had to drill out a few rivets due this time before everything was perfectly attached. 🙂

Next I began to rivet on the ribs to the spar.  This is easy enough to do solo if you are careful.  As I got closer to the wing root I was limited on physical space.  Feel free to laugh as I squeeze around to get the last few rivets set.

With the rivets all attached, I then started to install the AN3 hardware attaching the ribs to those stepped spar doublers.  I’m not sure I got it on camera, but I basically put the hardware on just tight enough to hold at first.  I came back later with a torque wrench that could measure in the in-lb range needed to set the AN3 hardware to spec.  A little dab of torque seal to help mark what hardware got torqued and I’m all set.

As I had posted earlier this week in the RV-10 facebook page, I finally got bit of motivation from another RV-10 pilot/builder.  He was nice enough to provide me with his wing cradle this past weekend.  I was able to swing by his hangar and swap some stories, ask a bunch of questions, and take a look at his plane while he was starting to preform his condition inspection.  His advice and experience was quite helpful and allowed me to not stress as much over my questions.

Once I got the cradle home, I had to move a few things around and ended up chopping up the spar shipping crate finally so I would have a little more room.  (I’ll be doing more “spring cleaning” in the next few weeks trying to make the garage a bit more functional while I continue to Read more

So I finally found a break in the weather as well as some time in my schedule that allowed me to get some primer on a few of my parts.  I didn’t mix enough primer to cover the parts I had, and I didn’t have enough sunlight to mix more and finish shooting it.  But I was able to prime enough parts to get a few parts riveted together.

After the epoxy set for 48 hours, I was back in the garage to rivet together the torque tube brackets.  I did a decent job marking up the parts to make sure they go back together the right way, however I did end up setting a bad rivet that took way too long to drill out / extract.

Then when went to attach the torque tube brackets to the ribs, I ended up mucking up another rivet during the attach process.  After digging out that rivet, my bucking bar slipped while trying to set it again.  I probably should have walked away at that point but I can sometimes get stubborn.  Easy to remove the half-set rivet, and after a small pause, I was able to finally set that one rivet properly.  (I will have to touch up the primer a little due to my efforts )

Then it was on to riveting the flap hinge brackets followed by using the unibit to drill out the wire run holes. (I plan on running a conduit through the stock location, as well as a second conduit through one of the lightening holes).

I also added in the snap bushings for the pitot system.  Next step is to attach the ribs to the Spars, but waiting to get a few other items done first since I have limited bench space.

Today I got some additional help in the garage.  My oldest was nice enough to help out her dad on the plane wile my wife and my youngest were off shopping.

We worked on attaching and match-drilling the ribs on the main spar.  It took me a few tried to properly translate what was written on the page to where and which direction each spar needed to face.  Once we figured it out, it was an easy process to put it together and match drilled.

This does make me wonder how to best pipeline the build to make sure I have sufficient room.  Another EAA table would be helpful, but really don’t have the space for another table.  I still have a wing cradle I need to pick up from a local EAA member in the next few weeks hopefully, but just need to work out where it will go.

Continuing to work on the Wing Ribs, I separate and clean up the flap hinge rib and match drill them with the flap hinge bracket and the wing ribs. I also make the matching torque tube support bracket for the other wing.  I also pull start marking up the ribs that need to be modified based on the plans and use my snips to trim as needed.  I clean up the rough edges with my files and a combo of 3M deburring wheels as well as scotchbriht pads.

Overall I’m trying to be good and debur parts as I work with them.  I also make sure all the part edges have been deburred and cleaned up with my 3M wheel and in those harder to reach areas my files and scotchbright pads.

Honestly this update doesn’t have a lot of meat to it as I’m basically continuing match drill the flap hings brackets as and to deburr all the ribs.  This takes a lot of time, but I think it’s well worth it down the line.  Deburring the wing ribs is more difficult due to the shape and small gaps that have to be cleaned up.  I end up breaking out my Dremel tool with my cone deburring wheel to try to get into some of the nooks.  This really helped get things cleaned up quickly but eats through the wheel pretty quick.