HS repair cont'd

Another blurry pic. Shows progress with th nibbler. The only draw back is that you cannot control the precision of each cut very well, so some are deeper than others. Here you can see some of the little pieces that have to be nibbled away - almost there...

For anyone with experience in such matters, no this is not mouse poop, even though it looks like it from a distance. Believe, me, unfortunately I know what mouse poop looks like! No sign of them in the last 8 months or so, so that's a good thing. These are the remnants of the metal removed from the flange by the nibbler.

The business end of the nibbler in its non-cuttting state

Now in the cutting position. It generally will remove about 1/8 inch of material by about 1/4 inch with each cut.

The end result after nibbling and grinding the edge to a smooth edge with no burs. You can also see the marks I have made on the spar flange when trial fitting the new flange in place. That was a lot of fun by the way, because I had to use 3 hands and some tape to hold everything into place. Then I had to fit my sharpee in there to draw some reference lines and mark the hole locations in the spar web. All the trial fitting had to be done with the end rib clecoed in place. Needless to say, since I was the only one present during this delicate balancing act, I have no pics of the part taped into place during this operation.

Another shot showing the degree to which the flange was trimmed. I only cut enough to remove the bend, leaving as much of the straight part of the spar web in tact. All of the metal dust and chips from drilling/nibbling were cleaned out of the areas as well. You don't want any of this material settling into the crack and crevaces where they can start to fatigue the metal between the spar and the skin over time. Everything was spic and span before closing it all up, hopefully for the last time.