Left Wing Frame Complete, RIght Wing Rear Spar Attach in Progress

Finished the left wing frame, at least as far as it can be finished at the moment, and mounted it up on the wing stand. I used one of two jacks that I purchased from home depot to "level" the center of the frame as per Vans instructions, which tell you to use some fishing line wrapped around the bottom-most spar flange #40 clecoes at both ends, and then use the jack to jack up the center of the frame until the rivet holes in the spar flange are aligned with the fish line. I was also pleased to see that as far as "level" is concerned, everything appears to be almost spot on. I may need to shim one side of the spar to get it  a bit more centered, but it is already very close. Why is this important? It has to do with the ease (or lack thereof) that the wing skins can be installed and aligned with each other. This is one time that you do not want gravity working against you.

After getting it on the stand and leveled, I tried to take the obligatory pic of the conduit holes all lined up with each other so you can see from one end to the other, which signifies that you drilled all your conduit holes in the right place, but the pic did not come out so good. Rest assured I could see all the way through every single rib and my conduit holes all appear to line up just fine. I settled for another pic that shows the first lightening holes all lined up which came out a bit better.

Here is frame on the stand with the jack in place to level the center by removing the sag that naturally occurs because of the weight of the entire assembly.

And a shot of the fish line across the rivet holes in the spar flange:

I used a small piece of 1x2 wood as a support under the jack stand .

Now on to the right wing frame. I mounted the rear spar and started clecoeing from the root to the tip just as I did for the left wing frame. Then I encountered a bit of a scare and a very embarassing moment. I got to the 13th rib, the one right next to the tip rib, and noticed something funny. the rear flange of the rib was not lining up with the rear spar correctly. Can you guess what I did? I was doing so well slamming the remaining rivets this morning that I lost concentration for a brief moment and managed to install rib #13 upside down. So off came the rear spar, and since I had already placed the left wing on the stand in front of the work bench, I could not easily move the right wing spar from the table to the work bench. Of course, I faced this problem AFTER I had to figure out how to drill out all five AN470 rivets from this rib with out damaging the rib or the spar.Not good odds for me either way.

My method was this:
Since I could not use my nifty AN470 rivet removal tool because it is too wide for the ribs and interferes with the rib web, I had to come up with a different solution. I decided I was once again going to drill the rivets out from the shop head side. I used a center punch to mark the center of the shop head as best I could. Then I took my #30 drill bit and manually ran the bit with my fingers until I knew I had a good hole started. Then and only then did I fire up the air drill and continue removing material from the shop head. I only drilled as deep as the shop head until it meets the spar web. Then I took my secret weapon, which is simply a small set of needle nose VISE Grips that I found at HD one day, and I set the jaws so they were as tightly closed as possible. Then I opened the jaws and clamped down the sides of the shop head and squeezed. Most of the shop heads disentegrated, exposing the actual rivet hole enough for me to run the drill the rest of the way and remove the rivets. I only enlarged one hole a little bit and figured this would be OK.


Then I had my son help me carefully move the spar and ribs back to the work bench, where I had to maneuver everything to reclamp the spar to the bench so I could re-rivet the rib back on, this time with the correct orientation. For some reason some of the rivets clenched a bit and I cannot understand why. I once again decided NOT to try to drill these out again for fear of doing more harm than good, and left everything as is. Then we moved the spar/ribs from the bench back to the table and I proceeded to re-attach the rear spar, the aileron gap seal, and flap support, and match drilled all the holes. Here are the shots of the right wing frame.

Tomorrow I need to debur all the holes and I hope to have the rear spar riveted on by the end of the day. Then I have to clear my work bench off so I can pull the wing skins down from the shelf where they have been gathering dust for way too long, and start prepping them. Still lots of work to do before I can claim the wing kit as complete, but this is significant progress nonetheless.