How to work on the plane when it is too cold to work on the plane...

Well the weather decided to show up right on schedule. Just when I need some fair weather to finish cleaning and priming my wing ribs, a large arctic blast shows leaving several inches of snow and below zero freezing temps - about normal for me.

Since I have no desire to get my hands wet in a bucket of luke-warm water to wash freezing cold aluminum wing ribs, I decided to find some research work to do to kill some time while this ridiculous air mass slowly moves out of town. So my thoughts turned back to my LED light machine gun project, and how to design the removable section of the leading edge so I can interchange it with the gun assembly and a "normal" clean leading edge.

I was planning on doing the whole thing in fiberglass to avoid removing any metal from critical sections of the wing, but themore I have thought about it the more I do not like that idea because it modifies the airflow at a critical location on the wing to the point where it may affect the function of the inboard section of the aileron, which is not good. My technical counselor got me thinking more about that when he started asking me how I was going to address any fairing that I may need to make to blend the part into the top and bottom skins of the wing.

So I started thinking about a different solution that does involve cutting off the rounded section of the leading edge in between the first two nose ribs of the leading edge where the fuel tank ends and the leading edge begins. To avoid getting into too much detail it will involve ordering 2 more 408-1 ribs for the left and right wings, new .032 inch thick strips of aluminum to make a slightly wider joiner plate than normally called for, some additional sheet aluminum for making the LE skin sections and  short spar sections, and some additional stall warning mounting bracket nose rib sections. I am also going to order some Duckworks blank template landing light kits, hoping that the cross spars in those kits have top and bottom flanges that actually touch or support the wing skins. I cannot find any pics from other builder logs that clearly show the top and bottom flanges and how or if they support or touch the top and bottom wing skins, so I will just haveto order some and find out for myself I guess.

This first pic shows what a new scotch brite pad looks like after using it to scuff all of the main wing ribs. The new one ison the left and the 2spent ones are on the right. It took 2 pads to scuff all main ribs for both wings.It will probably take at least one more to do all of the nose ribs:

Next is a pic of my lovely drawings for the leading edge mod that I am about to undertake:

I have ironed out most of the details of this mod, but there are a few critical elements where certain parts have to be sized to exact measurements, and the more I have to measure and apply the math to properly bend a flange to a precise dimension, the less likely it will happen. So if I can use some prefabricated parts to do at least part of the job, then that would be a good thing. Hopefully this will come together well, but I need to order some parts first, and then wait for warmer weather. Ho ho ho.... :(