Last night I finished drilling the remaining holes in the left wing leading edge. There were a couple of additional pics I wanted to show regarding the drilling process for the rib flanges to the wing spar. This first one shows a neat trick that I discovered to put more light on the underside of the wing spar. Using my Ryobi flash light (I love this light), I found that you can rotate the head all the way up, and then set it toward the far end of the bay immediately behind the bay that you are working in, and the light shines right on the spot of the wing spar web that you are working on. Worked really well for me.
And next is a pic that shows the bolt and nuts being removed to allow me to get the drill into the two holes either side of center. This did turn out to be a non-issue, and it took about 15 minutes to get both holes match-drilled and replace bolt and nut assemblies. Also notice the light from the flash light.....
And here is a shot of the drill bit and the rough position of the drill in order to drill out these holes in the wing spar web. It gives you an idea of the amount of bend that can be applied to the drill bit to keep the drill outof the way of the airplane parts and still drill a straight hole in the spar web.
Another strange thing happened to me while I was drilling out these holes. I found that I could not focus very well with my glasses on. If I removed them the spar holes were much clearer - so I drilled them all with my glasses off. Could it be that my vision is improving?
I also had a great show this past weekend right over my own house from the EAA B-17 Aluminum overcast, which was in town for its annual pilgrimage and promotional flying tour leading up to Airventure. Luckily it escaped another hail episode,but the weather was threatening on a couple of the days that it was here. Because of that, last Saturday afternoon I was treated to a direct overflight of the B-17not once, not twice, but three times before it departed and headed back to KAPA. What a treat that was. I really love where I live because it is a key reference point for most exhibition flights, including the F-16 overflights of Mile High Stadium during the Bronco games and a whole host of other local T-6 and P-51 activity from time to time. I even see some RVs every once in a while.
With the left wing LE holes drilled, it was time to start working on the LE for the right wing. I removed the vinyl from the inside of the LE, and then I prepped the nose sections of all of the LE ribs. Here is a shot of the LE:
and here is a pic that shows the end result of the smoothing out of the bumps that occur from the nose sections of each rib that are bent over to form the nose of the rib. In their rough form from the factory there are very noticeable ridges between each separate flange as they move around nose section of the rib. I had to back up a page or two in the instructions,but Vans does specifically mention to remove these"bumps to avoid transferring these distortions to the LE skin. They just don't tell you exactly how to do it. This is where I used my standard flat file and ran over the flange joints as many times as necessary, until each section felt nice and smooth to the touch. I ran my finger across each separate section until I was satisfied that it was as smooth as I though it should be, being careful not to remove too much material. Having said that, I did remove a fair amount of metal from some of the flange joints. Each rib was just a bit different so you have to customize the smoothing of each one. This next pic is a bad one but attempts to show the amount of material I removed to achieve smoothness of the nose section of each rib:
If you catch your finger on one of the flanges you need to keep removing material a couple of scrapes at at time until you can run your finger around the entire nose section without catching a ridge. This ensures that your LE skins will also remain smooth.
Tomorrow I started clecoing LE ribs to the skin and setting it on the right wing spar and match drilling those holes.I should also mention that I received a package from Vans with a parts order that I need to start working on my LE mod. I think I have that all worked out, but it is still somewhat involved in order to make it all come together correctly. More on that later...
Lastly special shout out to my friends Mike and Anetta Rettig, who gave birth to a healthy new baby boy the other day. Best wishes to all of you and Amelia too. I am anxiously waiting on specifics but mom and baby are recovering and when I know more I will post more.
Work continues........looking more and more like wings everyday. Fuel tanks are getting closer to the top of the work list.....
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