Outer Leading Edge -Part 3

Brian 0 Comment Outer Leading Edge

With the OLE drilled, I start to disassemble everything using my very handy pneumatic cleco gun.  With all the parts removed from the skin, I begin to deburr and scuff up the parts.  Off-camera I finish up the deburring as well as scuffing and cleaning a number of the parts from previous steps that I have not primed yet.

After letting everything dry and cure for a few days, I begin by countersinking the holes on the splice strip.  Since I have not replaced my single flute countersink cutter yet, I was attempting to use my 3 flute cutter.  Honestly I either didn’t have the airpressure in the drill properly adjusted or wasn’t using sufficient pressure to prevent the cutter from jumping.  End result was a few countersinks that didn’t look good.  Finally decided to use my drill press and started getting Read more

Outer Leading Edge – Part 2

Brian 0 Comment Outer Leading Edge

With the Ribs all set I need to pull down the tank skins to separate the splice strip.  Snips work great and a quick hit on the belt sander and the strips are ready for use.

I deconstruct my old horizontal stabilizer cradle to use for the OLE.  Honestly while it worked, as you can see in the video I did end up grabbing the part I cut out of the crate to help pull the skins into the ribs a bit.  I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to change the cradle for the other OLE and Tanks or continue with the current setup.   Read more

Outer Leading Edge – Part 1

Brian 0 Comment Outer Leading Edge

Getting back into editing video and posting a few updates.  I’m quite behind as the video for this update has a timestamp of March 4th.  Oops!

So as I pondered the order I wanted to build things, and looking around my limited garage space I have been trying to come up with a good build order.  I know once I get or build my wing-cradle, I’m not going to have much room to move around at all.  In order to put the wings into the cradle, I need to have the main spar, ribs, rear spar, top skin and outer leading edge done.  The moment I rivet the ribs to the main spar, I have basically lost a section of my build space / can no longer use the shipping crate I have to store the spars.

Looking ahead, it looks like the Outer Leading Edge can be done independently, so I could build them and store them out of the way now while I still have lots of bench space.  At least that’s the plan.

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Wing Ribs – Part 4

Brian 0 Comment Wing Ribs

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.

Rear Spar – Part 1

Brian 0 Comment Rear Spar

While waiting for an opportunity to prime (sensing a theme yet?), I decide to start section 15 – the Rear Spar.

The first order of business is to pull out the SB-16-03-28.  Initially I tried to figure out what steps I need to replace from the build manual (I’m working off revision 07/24/14).  Honestly it took me a while to figure out that the SB kit replaced step 2 on page 15-2.

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