January 20, 2007:
Well, as usual, one of the first steps is
deburring…
notice the grin… remember it… it won't last
long…
Here Angela is diligently deburring the leading edge ribs. Her smile went away about 2.3 nanoseconds into it… this girl is all business!
January 21, 2007: Aaaannnddd, there was even more deburring today… we learned from the horizontal & vertical stabilizers if the nose ribs aren't deburred fairly well on their nose, they have a tendencey to scratch the skin when clecoing them in. So, we got them mostly deburred, and then Angela started straightening the flanges, and then...
… worked on fluting the flanges. These nose ribs for the wings have the most pronounced warp due to the flanges we've seen so far… so fluting took a little while.
January 26, 2007:
Angela got back
to work on the wing outboard leading edges. She focused on
getting the
right one to the point of the left… more straightening of
the flanges,
and then fluting.
Here's a simple
little idea we came up with to help with straightening
the flanges… I say straighten, when I'm actually talking
about making
sure the flange of the rib is 90 degrees to the web. So, we
cut out a
small piece of plywood, and then cut an internal 90 degree angle to use
as a gauge. You simply hold one of the edges flush against
the web,
and slide the gauge across the web until it touches the
flange. If the
flange is flush with the other edge you're good to go... if not, adjust
accordingly. Here this one needs a bit of adjustment...
There, that's a bit
better!
There, all the ribs
are straightened, and fluted, ready for preassembly.
January 27, 2007:
So,
now that the ribs and splice strips are all in, it was time for the
J-stiffeners. These got cut down to 76 1/8" and will line the
upper skin of the outboard leading edges. Once they were cut
& deburred, I marked the rivet line on them the same as we did
for
the tailcone stiffeners.
January 21, 2007:
While Angela was working on fluting the rib flanges, I stole
4 of the
ribs from her to make the cutouts that will fit around the spar
bars.
Here you can see one of the ribs before (on the right) and one after
the cutouts were made (left).
January
19, 2007: These
were the first things we did in this section. We were doing
other
woodwork and since the garage was littered with sawdust already, these
just made sense. We cut the VB-11 wing leading edge blocks
and,
while we were at it, the flap
cradles as well (used later for the flaps), out of some
plywood.
After that we cut a few 57 1/2" long rails out of some 2x2's we had
laying around and then used them to assemble the cradles... and there
you go, thats it... they'e together and
ready for the leading edges... bring'em on!
January 26, 2007:
The inboard-most rib on the wing leading edges gets a "splice
strip"
sandwiched between it and the skin. This splice
strip serves as the
outboard mount for the fuel tanks. It will have a bunch of
nutplates
on it that will receive screws from the fuel tanks. The fuel
tank
skins (pictured below) are a bit thicker material, and the splice
strips are made from this thicker material. So, we needed to
separate
the splice strip from the fuel tank skins.
February 12, 2007:
In preparation for deburring the stiffener holes I noticed
there
were a lot of scratches on them from the manufacturing
process.
These look pretty ugly and it’s the first stiffeners we've
seen
that had them this bad (these are the same type stiffeners used in the
tailcone)… The scotch-brite wheel handled them pretty well.
February 11, 2007: I deburred the ribs and dimpled the holes in them on the same day. In
order to speed up the process of removing scratches from the ribs, especially those scratches
up in the bend between the web and flange, I borrowed one of the hints
I read on the VansAirforce forums. This is just a little 1"
scotch-brite wheel in our drill press. This works very nicely
and
allows you to keep 2 hands on your work... much more control.
February 16, 2007: The skins were the last things deburred. I took a file to the edges
to knock the burrs off, and then followed that up with a scotch-brite
pad. I then completed step 8 on page 3.
February 13, 2007: This took
longer than it should've… the wing kit
has been sitting for almost a year, and the vinyl seemed like it didn't
want to come off. I got to do this solo this time, and with the
curved skins it was a nuisance… REAL productive work here!
Anyway, we actually did this after everything had been clecoed
together, final drilled, and torn back down.
January 21, 2007:
Here you can see we've got most
of the ribs clecoed in the left outboard leading edge. It's
missing
the most inboard rib (farthest away in the picture) because we still
need to separate the splice strip, that gets sandwiched in between the
rib and the skin, from the fuel tank skin. We'll get
the right side leading edge to this point at a later
date.
January 26, 2007:
Here Angela is
attempting to cleco the inboard most rib and the splice strip to the
left outboard leading edge skin. These proved to be quite
difficult to
get eveything lined up. She eventually resorted to trying the
right
side to see if it was just as difficult... it was. We looked
them over
to see what the issues were, and it appears that you need to be a bit
more precise with your fluting, deburring, and flange bends on
these.
Sounds like a good thing to work on tomorrow ;-)
January 27, 2007:
First up today was to get the inboard-most rib installed in
each
of the outboard leading edge assemblies. As mentioned
yesterday,
these proved to be a pain. I pulled them out, adjusted the
flutes
to get all the holes to line up perfectly, spent a bit more time
deburring the nose flanges, and then readjusted the flanges to make
sure they were 90 degrees to the web. The fit in the skin was
better, but I still couldn't get them clecoed in... the most forward
part of the nose skin and splice strip pinched down a bit, and it was
very difficult to get the rib far enough forward to get the holes to
line up. Then I remembered reading on the Matronics list
about
leaving the skin out of the cradles and only clecoing the forward-most
holes on each rib. So, I pulled the skins out, unclecoed
everything down to clecoes in the front, and you know what... it works!
January 27, 2007:
Next I slid the J-stiffeners into the slots cut out for them
in
the ribs. Once in position I simply made sure the end was
flush
with the last rib, made sure the rivet line was visible in the
pre-punched holes in the skin, and then drilled every 4th hole,
clecoing as I went. I've found on these stiffeners that
drilling
every 4th hole is just about right. After I get those holes
done
I come back and drill the center hole in each of the gaps, and cleco
those. Then I come back and drill all the remaining holes.
Page 3, Step 5: Final drill screw holes in splice strip.
January 27, 2007:
While I was finishing up the J-stiffeners Angela came out to
get
some hands-on. So, she took on final drilling all the rib,
nutplate & spar holes in the right leading edge, while I did
the
left… the RACE was on! She got a head start on me,
but I
eventually caught up ;-)
And
the last thing we did for the night was enlarge the fuel tank screw
holes on the splice strips to their final size and we also final
drilled the two stall warning slot guide holes on each skin.
Vans
provides two holes in the leading edge that serve as locators for where
to cut the slot that the stall warning vane sticks through.
We
don't plan on using the stall warning system provided in the kit since
we plan on installing an Angle of Attack system instead... a wealth of
info and far superior to a stall warning system! So, the
holes
will simply be filled with rivets instead.
February 10, 2006:
We countersunk the nutplate attachment holes just prior to
dimpling the large screw holes (see step 9 below)
February 3, 2007:
Angela
wanted something to do so she began the teardown and debur
process. Since I was still working on the outboard sections
of
the wings she basically began by pulling off inboard ribs and
deburring. Here she's showing us her freshly deburred splice
strip!
February 11, 2007:
Today I worked on getting the remaining ribs in the leading
edges
deburred and dimpled. Our leading edge ribs had more scrapes
and
scratches as delivered from the factory than any other piece in the kit
so far. This was a pain, and took a while to get out.
February 16, 2007: On this day I first deburred the edges of the skins, and next I used the burraway tool to debur all the holes… Lots a holes! I wanted to dimple the skins tonight as well, but wasn't able to get to it.
February 16, 2007: On this day I first deburred the edges of the skins, and next I used the burraway tool to debur all the holes… Lots a holes! I wanted to dimple the skins tonight as well, but wasn't able to get to it.
February 3, 2007:
Angela is showing us how she man-handles the DRDT-2
while dimpling rib flanges… take that!
February
10, 2006: The splice strips have have
the
largest holes that we've dimpled so far. The large holes are
for
the #8 screws that will attach the fuel tanks to the outboard leading
edges. The plans stress ensuring these holes are 'carefully'
deburred, or else cracking can be an issue. Anyway, I made
sure
all the holes in the splice strips were deburred, and then countersunk
the nutplate attachment holes (see step 7 above), and then finally
dimpled the #8
holes. We had 3 of them show signs of small cracks, so I used
one
of our small needle files to file them out. No biggie, but I
feel
better about it.
February 12, 2007: After deburring the stiffeners, and all the scratches removed I deburred the holes, wiped them down with some MEK, and then dimpled the holes. The stiffeners are done.
February 27, 2007:
Angela and I finished up the dimpling tonight. This is much more efficient as a 2
person job… even so, it took us a little over an hour to do both
skins. After that I drilled the AoA port holes in the left skin...
February 23, 2007:
We're experiencing very windy weather right now so this morning I prepped all the small parts
for alodining so they'll be ready once the winds let up. After that I gave all the ribs one more once over
because I knew we left quite a few spots during the initial
deburring. After that I set this all aside and went to work on the fuel tanks.
February 25, 2007:
After the winds this morning let up I was finally able to get
outside and alodine the leading edge parts. Didn't have time
to prime
them yet, so that'll come later. You can see from this pic the
new chemicals work MUCH better than the old. We're using the
alodine full strength, and this is the result of only 15 seconds!
Sure beats 10 minutes.
March 4, 2007: After
returning home from the SportAir workshop I tried to take advantage of the last
little bit of daylight by priming the leading edge parts. I
wasn't able to get all of them before running out of primer so I'll see
if I can finish them up after work tomorrow.
March 6, 2007:
Continuing on with a little bit of riveting tonight, I set my eye
on nutplates ;-) Here the #8 nutplates are riveted to the splice
strips. These will be used to attach the outboard end of the fuel
tanks to the outboard leading edges.
March 6, 2007:
In preparation for riveting we placed the skins back in the
cradles and re-assembled everything. We'll start on the riveting
tomorrow.
March 7, 2007:
Angela and I got started riveting the leading edge skins
tonight. We got about 3/4 of one of them done… taking our
time, makin' em look good ;-)
March 8, 2007:
Angela & I riveted the second leading edge to about the same
point as the first (instead of finishing the first). Angela had to go so we'll finish
them up next time.
March 11, 2007: Ok, Angela & I finally finished the riveting of the outboard leading edges. They look nice! But they're not quite done yet. Next up, we'll be installing the landing lights and the Angle of Attack ports.
March 11, 2007: Ok, Angela & I finally finished the riveting of the outboard leading edges. They look nice! But they're not quite done yet. Next up, we'll be installing the landing lights and the Angle of Attack ports.
February 13, 2007:
On the underside of each leading edge skin there is a hole that
must be enlarged for a tie-down ring. You simply open up the hole
gradually with a step drill. I've found I get better results if I
step the hole up to about 1/4" first with drill bits before using the
step drill. Since I'm doing both leading edges at the same time,
I could drill both holes, change bits, drill both holes again, etc,
etc...
