17th:After fitting the skins, realized the pitot/static tube
hangers should have been installed before the ribs were
riveted. However, using the 90-degree drill body,
cut-off long drill bits and long drill bits, was able to fit
them in place.
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17th:Another big step was cutting the pitot-static mounting
hole in the forward wing skin. Clamped some one-by stock to
the skin and had at it with the fly cutter, having pre-drilled
a pilot hole. Scary using a fly cutter hand-held. Not
recommended, but there wasn't space to get the skin over to
the drill press. Though the plans didn't call for it, I
slightly countersunk the rivet holes for the CCC-32 nut plate
rivets. The pitot-static assembly (plans-made) sits on the
outside of the wing skin, but the tubes are a disruption
anyway and this is not a 250-kt laminar-flow
speedster.
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17th: The remade aft root rib is installed at last. I
had put this off until after the skins were fitted because I
misaligned the original slightly and wasn't happy with how
close the rivet holes were to the front end of the flange, so
I ordered a new blank. After much head scratching and
looking, it is necessary to remove the root rib attach angles
from the spar to do this, after carefully drilling two pilot
holes for alignment. The rear spar attach angle has a couple
of rivets in it, that I set before dealing with this problem,
so the pilot holes were marked through the attach angle holes
with a hand-spun drill bit. I had set the forward rib gusset
rivets from the rib side, so had to grind off a bit of the
protruding shank to get the lower bolts out. In the future,
nothing gets rivetted until the whole assembly is in cleco, to
avoid these issues. I had also left ribs 1 and 2 clecoed,
thinking I could move these over for drill body access, but
the rear spar attach bracket rivets prevented moving the rib.
Had to use the hand riveter on the ribs, as there wasn't
enough room for the pneumatic tool with the 5-inch rib
spacing.
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30th: Not much work done the rest of the month other
than a good start on the forward rib dimpling, due to
honey-do's and other projects, and time out for planning the
wiring and lighting, as we suddenly realized it is time to do
that before closing the wing. The current plan is to put taxi
light on one wing and landing light on the other, with a
wig-wag flasher unit. The lighting is mainly for insurance on
long cross-countries and to increase pattern visibility on smokey
summer days. But, a big milestone: two years and three weeks
after receiving the airframe kit, the Jabiru 3300 arrived, a
bit early, but a quick look at the savings account showed it
wasn't earning interest as fast as the dollar is dropping
these days, so we ordered one of the last of the $15.9K
motors. Since I don't want it to sit in the crate too long,
this puts a speed-up on the completion schedule. Next: order
wiring and lighting, then finish dimpling the forward ribs on
the top side, ditto the skin, put back together and flip for
the lower side. |