Primed all the parts

Wiped everything down with acetone and shot everything with P60G2 Primer.

Painted the outboard bays flat black so it looks decent when seen through the landing light lenses. Kinda wish vans provided some sort of reflector or housing.

Dimpled a lot of nut plates. Riveted them to the splice strips, the inspection plate doubler. and the landing light backing plates, and the landing light brackets.

Clecoed the inspection port doubler to the skin and riveted in place.

Clecoed the ribs to the left skin and drilled the tie-down hole.

Made it about half way through riveting the left leading edge before calling it a night.

Today’s Time (hours):	6.0
Wing Time (hours):	107.0
Total Time (hours):	318.0

Finished dimpling everything

Clecoed the left leading skin to the ribs.

Slid the j channel into place and clecoed the starter hole. Then match drilled all the holes from the skin into the stiffener.

Match drilled the aft-most top and bottom holes in each of the ribs.

Disassembled everything and repeated the whole process for the right wing. Deburred and dimpled all the holes.

Dressed the edges of the skin with a file and sand paper. The cut-outs for the landing lights were pretty jagged. I cleaned them up with an abrasive drum on the Dremel and some sandpaper.

Dimpled the skins with the DRDT2 and scuffed the insides with a scotch brite pad.

Dimpled the rest of the parts.

Everything is ready for priming and assembly.

Today’s Time (hours):	7.0
Wing Time (hours):	101.0
Total Time (hours):	312.0

Work continues on outboard leading edges

Deburred all the edges of all the things. The doublers for the landing light lenses looked like they were crafted by Van’s with a chainsaw. You can see the before and after shot below. I used sandpaper to work the flanges around the nose of the ribs so that the skins don’t telegraph any faceting.

Trimmed the four ribs called out in the plans so that they will fit around the spar braces. Finished with files and sandpaper.

Flattened, straightened and fluted all the ribs. Then final drilled and deburred all the holes.

Dimpled all the holes with the squeezer.

Cut the J-channel stiffeners to length and drilled the first inboard hole in each.

Final drilled #19 the screw holes in the splice strips. Carefully deburred the holes and dimpled for #8 screws. Dimpled all the #40 holes as well.

In other news, I received the order confirmation for the engine I ordered at Sun ‘n Fun. The ship date from Lycoming is October 11.

series-engine-390

Today’s Time (hours):	5.0
Wing Time (hours):	94.0
Total Time (hours):	305.0

Finished Section 16–Top Wing Skins

Riveted the nut plates to the inboard rib and skin. Machine countersunk the screw holes.

Match drilled the aileron bracket to the outboard rib and rear spar, deburred, and riveted in place.

Top wing skins completed!

Today’s Time (hours):	1.0
Wing Time (hours):	87.0
Total Time (hours):	298.0

Attached nut plates at inboard rib and countersunk screw holes

Riveted the nut plates that will be used to attach the wing attach point fairings. I was able to squeeze all the rivets.

Machine countersunk the corresponding #8 screw holes to fit a dimpled skin.

Clecoed and match drilled the outboard aileron bracket. Then deburred everything and clecoed back in place.

It was a bit too ate in the evening for riveting so that will have to wait until tomorrow. If Remy can buck a few more rivets with me, I should be able to get the stiffeners riveted in and the left wing top skins will be complete!

Today’s Time (hours):	1.0
Wing Time (hours):	81.5
Total Time (hours):	292.5

Dimpled all the ribs and stiffeners

Got my rivet set and AD5 rivets from spruce and replaced the rivets I removed after screwing up last week. See Finished riveting everything to the rear spars… almost.

Dimpled all the ribs in both wings…

…and the J-channel stiffeners

Today’s Time (hours):	1.5
Wing Time (hours):	75.5
Total Time (hours):	286.5

Drill and countersink inboard top skin and wing walk doublers

Screen Shot 2019-05-27 at 10.20.28 AM

I clecoed the wing walk doubles and inboard top skins to the spars and ribs.

Match drill #40 rivet holes for nut plates along inboard edge.

Final drilled #19 the screw holes and dimpled the one furthest aft.

Final drilled #40 and countersunk all of the holes in the skin that are common to the wing walk doublers.

Disassembled everything.

Today’s Time (hours):	2.0
Wing Time (hours):	71.0
Total Time (hours):	282.0

Riveted rear spars to ribs

Riveted the rear spars to the wing ribs. I tried to use the squeezer but it was cumbersome with several different rivet sizes and with the flanges in the way. So I switched to the gun. This was much easier.

And of course, no section is complete without a few mistakes. I used the wrong size rivets in ribs behind the doublers. I used 4-4’s and needed 4-5’s the shop heads were too thin to be acceptable. So I drilled them all out. Nine rivets in total. I couldn’t punch the rivets out because there was nothing to back them up when I hit them with the punch. So I had to drill them all the way out. I was super careful but the holes are enlarged ever so slightly. If this wasn’t a critical structure, I’d probably just re-rivet it but this area carries the load from the ailerons and flaps. So I’ll go with a larger river to ensure structural soundness. I order some -5 rivets, a #21 drill, and a 5/32″ rivet set from Spruce.

I also put in an order with Van’s for some fuel tank sealant.

Today’s Time (hours):	2.0
Wing Time (hours):	69.0
Total Time (hours):	280.0

Fixed the right aileron hinge and riveted to rear spar

Did some flying with Jared today in his RV-14A. Awesome day dancing around some scattered clouds and some fun aerobatics. Thanks for the great flight today, Jared! The aerobatic training is definitely paying off. Sorry no pics. I was having too much fun!

Meanwhile back at the airplane factory…

Received the replacement parts from vans and did the little bit of fabrication necessary to prepare the doublers and attach brackets.

Deburred and primed the new parts with SEM rattle can primer. Riveted the attach brackets to the hinge.

Riveted the hinge and doublers to the right rear spar.

The mistake cost me $45 in parts and an hour and a half of build time.

Got my new 3/8″ reamer from McMaster Carr. Used it in the drill press to precisely size the rear spar attach holes. The twisted flutes cut like butter.

Clecoed the rear spars to the wing ribs. Ready to rivet tomorrow.

Today’s Time (hours):	2.0
Wing Time (hours):	67.0
Total Time (hours):	278.0

Finished riveting everything to the rear spars… almost.

Finished riveting all the stuff to the spars…

I really struggled riveting the aileron hinge brackets to the spar. Couldn’t get the squeezer in there. My rivet set wasn’t long enough to clear the bracket. So I had to use the offset rivet set. But that one is thicker and interfered with the bracket rivets. Mangled a bunch of rivets and drilled them out. Ended up mangling the bracket and bending the doubler drilling out one of them. Thankfully the spar was undamaged.

I drilled out all the rivets and disassembled the brackets and doublers. The hinge is fine. Emailed Van’s to send me a new doubler and angle bracket.

On the other wing I had the brilliant idea to try shooting the rivets for the hinge bracket from the other side of the spar. This worked a lot better.

Should have replacement parts by next weekend when I get back from Florida.

Today’s Time (hours):	2.0
Wing Time (hours):	65.0
Total Time (hours):	276.0