Like most builders, I have chosen to build the wings first. I need to sharpen up my welding skills quite a bit before attempting to tackle the fuselage. Each wing is about 14ft in length, and is contrustucted with a skeleton of 85 ribs attached between 2 structural spars. The Flaps and Ailerons are built seperately, then attached after the wing is assembled. Wing tips are added later on as well.
Date |
Title |
Description |
Hours |
Photo |
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| 11.30.2009 | Nose Ribs | Flattened out half of the nose ribs tonight. A couple were a little twisted. So hard to fix when that happens. | 1 | |||||
| 11.29.2009 | Nose Ribs | Now that Thanksgiving is over I can get back to work :) Flanged the 23 right Nose Ribs tonight. Cracked two of the ribs on the smaller hole. ALWAYS debur prior to flanging!! | 2.5 | |||||
| 11.23.2009 | Nose Ribs | Finished flanging the lightening holes on the 23 left Nose Ribs. I had 4 that were more difficult than the others. It looks like the flanging die cocked and made one side's flange slightly wider. This resulted in an uneven twist that was hard to remove. | 2 | |||||
| 11.22.2009 | Nose Ribs | Flanged the 26 left Nose Ribs last night. Bought a 1 ton arbor press from Harbor Freight. Went fairly quickly but I did not have time to flatten each rib. I did have to make another flanging die as the original large one cracked | 4 | |||||
| 11.19.2009 | False Ribs | Cut the lightening holes in the 4 False Ribs tonight. | 0.5 | |||||
| 11.18.2009 | False Ribs | Flanged the 4 False Ribs tonight. Went very quickly. | 0.5 |  |
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| 11.17.2009 | Center Ribs | Cut the lightening holes in the .032 Center Ribs. Since the same holes are cut in the Tip Ribs, I did those as well. | 2.5 |
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| 11.16.2009 | False Ribs | Cut out and deburred the 4 False Ribs. Also cut the first two lightening holes in 2 of the .032 Center Ribs | 1.5 |  |
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| 11.15.2009 | Center Ribs | Fluted the 4 left and 4 right .032 Center Ribs | 1.5 |  |
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| 11.14.2009 | Center Ribs | Flanged the 4 left and 4 right.032 Center Ribs. | 1.5 |  |
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| 11.13.2009 | Center Ribs | Cut out the 8 .032 Center Ribs and drill out lightening hole locations | 2.5 |  |
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| 11.12.2009 | Tip Ribs | Fluted the left Tip Rib tonight. These ribs take a lot of work to get then to lay perfectly flat. Lots of tweaking. | 1 |  |
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| 11.11.2009 | Tip Ribs | Today is the two month mark of my project. Started my formblock on 9.11.2009. Hoping to continue this trend in the coming months. Finished bringing the flanges to 90 degrees. Then fluted the right Tip Rib. The bow on these ribs is quite a sight. Took a lot more work than any other rib I have done to get it to lay flat. |
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| 11.10.2009 | Tip Ribs | Flanged both Tip Ribs tonight. Had a scratch on one of the flange areas. Buffed it out with the Scotch Brite wheel. | 1 |  |
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| 11.09.2009 | Tip Ribs | Trimmed the Tip Ribs to final size. Drilled all lightening/jig hole locations. | 0.5 | |||||
| 11.08.2009 | Wing Spars | After taking a night and a day off to spend some time with my wife in the mountains, I spent my Sunday bending up the wing spars. My Dad, a retired sheet metal worker, helped me out. I setup the brake as suggested in the Beartracks newsletter and in Eric's Wings Manual. I am very happy with the results. Took my time and made a few samples. One I could accurately reprodue a good fit, I bent up the real thing. Good stuff... | 4 |
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| 11.05.2009 | Aileron Ribs | Cut the lightening hole in the Aileron Ribs tonight. Very quick. Still working out how I want to flange all the lightening holes. Bob-stick or flanging dies... | 0.5 |  |
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| 11.04.2009 | Aileron Ribs | Finished flanging the aileron ribs to the full 90 degrees. After finishing the flanges, I fluted all the Aileron Ribs. This process really goes quickly after you've done quite a few ribs. | 2.5 |  |
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| 11.03.2009 | Aileron Ribs | Flanged the 16 Aileron Ribs last night. The backing block started to crack and chip about 3/4 of the way through. Formblock is OK though. Used a clamp and everything held. Should last for the 2 Tip Ribs | 1.5 |  |
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| 11.02.2009 | Aileron Ribs | Drilled out pilot holes for lightening hole locations. Routered the Aileron Ribs to final shape. | 1 | |||||
| 11.01.2009 | Flap Ribs | Cut all the lightening holes in the flap ribs today. Messed up one rib by putting the last hole in the jog pin hole instead of the 4th hole over. Also made two male flanging dies for the nose ribs. | 2 |
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| 10.31.2009 | Flap Ribs | Fluted the 18 flap ribs tonight. | 2 | |||||
| 10/29/2009 | Flap Ribs | Flanged the 9 right side Flap Ribs tonight after cutting the holes in the Back Ribs. Was too tired to do the left sides... | 1 |  |
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| 10.29.2009 | Back Ribs | Cut the lightening holes in the Back Ribs tonight. Went quick since there are only 4 of them. Had trouble finding something to cut the last hole since my fly-cutter didn't go that small. Ended up using a forstner bit. Worked well as long as it was centered. I found after practicing on scrap, if you start out with agressive pressure to cut the groove, then back off and take your time, the bit won't walk on you. Worked pretty good. | 0.5 |  |
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| 10.28.2009 | Flap Ribs | Routered the Flap Ribs to final shape. Drilled all lightening hole locations. | 1 |  |
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| 10.27.2009 | Back Ribs | Cut down the Back Rib template to use for a backing plate. Flanged and fluted the 4 Back ribs. | 1.5 |  |
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| 10.26.2009 | Flap Nose Ribs | Cut the Flap Nose Rib formblock down. Radiused the edge and flanged the 26 Flap Ribs last night. | 3 |  |
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| 10.25.2009 | Pocket Ribs | Flanged the Pocket ribs. Also drilled the 3/4" hole in the Aileron Ribs for the counter-weight tube. | 2 |  |
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| 10.24.2009 | Aileron, Pocket, Flap Nose Ribs | Deburred the aileron, pocket, and flap nose ribs. Spent a lot of time grinding down and deburring the inside of the tabs of all the ribs after cutting the spaces with snips. Lots of dremel use here. Flanged the Aileron Ribs. | 6 | |||||
| 10.23.2009 | Flap Nose Ribs | Routered the flap nose ribs to shape. Cut out the formblock and sanded a radius into the edges. | 2 | |||||
| 10.22.2009 | Aileron Ribs | Routered the Aileron Ribs. Cut out the tabs and filed them down. Cut out the formblock and radiused it. | 2 | |||||
| 10.21.2009 | Aileron Pocket Ribs | Routered the Aileron Pocket Ribs tonight. Drilled the jig holes and cut down and radiused the formblock. | 2 | |||||
| 10.20.2009 | Oval Holes - Center Ribs | After heading to NY and stopping at Barrow's Field for Bob's BBQ, I am back at it. Cut the remaining oval lightening holes in the left center ribs. | 1 |  |
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| 10.14.2009 | Back Ribs/Center Holes | Cut the lightening holes for the new center rib. Filed down the oval holes with files and dremel on all the left center ribs. Also routered the back ribs and located the lightening hole centers. | 2 | |||||
| 10.13.2009 | Lightening Holes - Center Ribs | Cut the remaining holes in the center ribs. Mangled yet another rib while cutting the oval lightening hole. Took an hour to cut, router, flange and flute the new rib. I THOUGHT I already learned my lesson from the fly-cutter. Apparently not... | 3.5 |  |
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| 10.12.2009 | Lightening Holes - Center Ribs | Cut the 2.5" lightening holes in the center ribs (first two hole each). Mangled 2 of the ribs when the fly-cutter caught the metal. Took two hours to remake both center ribs. Not a big deal. Learned my lesson with the fly-cutter... | 4 |  |
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| 10.11.2009 | Fluting - Center Ribs | Fluted the other half of the center ribs. Again, very easy once you get the hang of it... | 2 | |||||
| 10.10.2009 | Fluting - Center Ribs | Fluted half of the center ribs today. Homemade fluting pliers really shine here. | 2 | |||||
| 10.09.2009 | Tip Ribs - Rought Cut | Cut out the tip ribs from the remaining sheet of .025 | 1 | |||||
| 10.08.2009 | Fluting - Nose Ribs | Fluted the last of the right side noseribs. Went much smoother now that I figured out how to easily do them | 1.5 | .jpg) |
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| 10.07.2009 | Fluting - Nose Ribs | Fluted the first 13 of the right side nose ribs. Took longer than the previous two nights, but I found an iteration that made it easier. First, Eric Newton replied and told me my ribs looked just fine. That was encouraging. Second, I used my homemade fluting pliers instead. I found that since they made smaller flutes, it was a less dramatic change. I could easily make a flute in between each rivet and it was pretty close to done. Just a little tweaking needed. If I needed more "bite" i'd use the bigger fluting pliers (especialy handy around the nose where the curve is steepest). The I would straighten out the rivet locations with flat pliers and tweak the rib flat again. Excellent results. Should be able to finish up the rest tomorrow! | 3 | |||||
| 10.06.2009 | Fluting - Nose Ribs | Another two hours to do the remaining left nose ribs. I thought this would go quicker. Probably about 7 minutes per rib. I'll post a question about the waviness of the rivet locations. I can't get them PERFECTLY flat. | 2 | |||||
| 10.05.2009 | Fluting - Nose Ribs | Spent two hours doing the first 13 of the left nose ribs. Took longer than I thought. Took a while to figure out a good method of fluting. I tried the youtube video method at first. Worked resonably well. I found that AFTER fluting I had to go back and straighten the rivet locations out. Then flute again because straightening rounded the rib a little. Frustrating, but not too bad. | 2 |  |
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| 10.04.2009 | Flanges - Center Ribs | Formed the flanges on the 14 .025 Center RIbs. Even though it was only 14 of them, it took longer than I expected due to the 5 bolts. Putting them on and taking them off took up some time! | 2 |  |
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| 10.03.2009 | Routing - Center Ribs | Routed the 14 .025 Center Ribs to size. Didn't take that long, but I didn't recess the bolts, so the router had to be moved around them every 5 inches. | 0.75 |  |
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| 10.02.2009 | Forming Flanges - Nose Ribs | Finished the flanges by hammering them over by hand to make 90 degrees. This did not take too long because my formblock, being 6-7 degrees past 90, left my nose ribs very close to 90. | 1 | |||||
| 10.01.2009 | Forming Flanges - Nose Ribs | Formed the last 8 right nose ribs. I also changed the rivet spacing on the block. Moved it to .75 back of the spar center and 1.50 from there. This should get me closer to nine rivets on the nose. | 0.75 |  |
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| 09.30.2009 | Forming Flanges - Nose Ribs | Formed All of the left nose ribs, and all but 8 of the right. I will finish up tomororw! | 2 |  |
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| 09.29.2009 | Forming Flanges - Nose Ribs | Continued pounding ribs tonight. Got 12 left nose ribs flanged. Got side tracked because I got a shipment in from Wicks. Rivets! Could resist playing with them. Bucked my first rivet! Not too hard. But it keeps you on your toes... | 2 | |||||
| 09.28.2009 | Forming Flanges - Nose Ribs | I spent about an hour forming the backing block and then hammering a few ribs out. I made 3. One right, and then two lefts. I wanted to make sure my form blocks were identical and that the ribs came out exactly alike. They did. I am happy with the results, but the wavyness scared me a little. I know fluting pliers will straighten the rib, but the wavyness seems like it is permanent. Time to post some pictures and get some feedback! | 1 |  |
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| 09.27.2009 | Lightening Holes Nose RIbs | Spent a quick 30 mins just adding the smaller lightening holes in the nose ribs. I might have made them .030" too small. No big deal. | 0.5 |  |
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| 09.24.2009 | Lightening Holes Nose RIbs | Used the Fly-Cutter to cut the 4.5" lightening holes in the 46 nose ribs. Went fairly quickly, but made quite the mess. | 1 |  |
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| 09.23.2009 | Router Cut Nose RIbs | Cut the nose ribs to final size using router and 1/2" flush trim bit. The Template wasn't tight enough and slipped on the final 6 ribs. Had to re-do them. No big deal. An extra 45-60 mins, including me making the decision to redo them. | 2.5 | |||||
| 09.22.2009 | Pilot Holes - Ail & Flap Nose Ribs | Drilled all relief holes in the Flap Nose Ribs, Aileorn Nose Ribs, and Aileron Pocket Ribs. | 1 | |||||
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| 09.16.2009 | Center Ribs | Rough Cut 14 Center Ribs out of 2024-T3 sheet | 2.5 | |
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| 09.15.2009 | Aileron Nose Ribs | Rough cut 16 Aileron Nose Ribs and 26 Flap Nose Ribs out of 2024-T3 sheet. | 3 |  |
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| 09.14.2009 | Aileron Pocket Ribs | Cut 16 Aileron Pocket Ribs out of 2024-T3 sheet. | 1 |  |
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| 09.13.2009 | Back, Flap, and Aileron Ribs | Rough cut 4 Back, 16 Aileron, and 18 flap ribs out of .025 2024-T3. | 2.5 |  |
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| 09.12.2009 | Nose Ribs | Cut out template for nose ribs and traced 46 copies onto .025 sheet of 2024-T3 AlClad. Rought cut with snips. Will trim to final shape using router. | 2.5 |  |
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| 09.11.2009 | Formblock | Made two master formblocks. One left and one right. Each with about a 6 degree angle into the outside to help with the springback of the aluminum. Took a while to get them right. Also, didn't like the way the locations of the jig pin holes and lightening holes came out. Filled them with flox (Cozy trick) and redrilled) | 6 |  |
