Last night I fitted the left wing tip’s rib. This involved locating some holes on the rib and on the fiberglass, so that the web of the rib is flush with the edge of the wingtip.
I miscalculated one hole, and needed to fill it once I was done with locating all of the other holes. holes are then countersunk, and the rib deburred and primed.
Tonight I riveted the rib into position. This required the rivet gun, as the flange of the rib is facing inside the wingtip (i.e. outboard). The riveting was quick and easy.
Rib taped into position, and drilling underway.Once the rib was installed, the wing tip was completed, except for trimming the rear edge. I installed it and marked the line where it will need to be sanded back
Tonight I installed the wingtip nutplates on the left wing. I had to order a few extra from aircraft spruce the other day, because I was 5 short of the number I needed.
I found one nut plate where the holes weren’t quite aligned, so I filled one of the holes and will re-drill, countersink, and rivet the nutplate on tomorrow. Otherwise I finished the task.
Clecoed nutplates. The one in the foreground has one hole filled to fix a misalignment problemNutplates riveted on both sides Installing the wingtip and measuring the aft edge (where the arrow is pointing). The aft edge needs to be sanded down until it’s flush with the aileron trailing edge.
This weekend I focused on the left wing wingtip. With the flap and aileron installed, I confirmed their alignment, then mounted the wing tip and match drilled holes into the wingtip. The holes in the skin are then deburred and dimples, while the fiberglass wingtip tip holes are countersunk, and rivet holes are drilled to install nutplates.
Checking the alignment between flap and aileronUsing a ratchet strap to apply pressure to hole the wingtip in position. Match drilling holes into the fiberglass wingtipDeburring wing skin holesDimpling wing skin holes Marking and drilling holes for rivets to hold the nut platesCountersinking fiberglass holesCountersinking rivet holes
Tonight I installed the left wing aileron and used the templates to find the neutral point.
I got a little concerned when I found the pushrod rubbing on the aileron attach bracket, but then realized that it only makes contact at the end of the aileron travel, which is likely beyond the stop on the other side (once the wings are installed and both ailerons are rigged).
I also found that I wanted to use a combination of the flap and the templates to determine the correct aileron neutral position. Luckily these two methods concurred, so I taped the aileron into position. This will then inform the placement and fine tuning of the fiberglass wingtip, which is up next.
Note the blue template being used to help identify the neutral aileron positionRigging the pushrod from wing root to bellcrankWhere the pushrod extends through the rear spar and attaches to the aileron. I ended up rotating the pushrod so the manufactured heads of the rivets face the spar and bracket, given maximum clearanceAileron and flap installed, establishing the neutral position.
Tonight I made a couple more access panels for the wings. I had originally made enough, but I had used one to mount a Dynon pitot heat regulator, which involved drilling and dimpling 4 holes in the panel.
I then added the nut plates to the bottom outboard skin around the access panel openings.
I also countersunk the aileron attach bracket, where the pushrod attaches to the aileron. The pushrod is attached via an AN509-10 countersunk bolt.
Access plates ready to be primedAfter installing the nut plates around the access holesIn the bottom center of the picture is the countersunk hole
Tonight I finished riveting the bottom wing skin. Overall, it all went very smoothly. There are a couple of over driven rivets in there, but nothing that I felt worth removing and re-doing.
Because it’s not possible to see the ship head or bucking bar when setting the rivet, I used a couple of spacers (small blocks of wood taped to the bucking bar) to help brace against nearby rib or spar flanges to help align the bucking bar. It helps to be ambidextrous with the rivet gun, and to have a long reach.
The finished bottom wing skin. The pile of colored rags were used as padding on top of the wing spar, in case I dropped the bucking bar.
The last two nights I’ve continued riveting the bottom, outboard, left wing skin. Nothing to report, other than a minor issue when I realized the j-channel (short) that was installed by the quickbuilders was not match drilled. This makes sense, because it probably needs to be match drilled through the skin and j-channel. The annoying thing is that Vans doesn’t mention match drilling the j-channel at all in the instructions, so it’s easy to miss this step. Anyway, because I already had the skin half riveted on by the time I realized these holes were not there, I was limited in options, particularly when I comes to dimpling. I match drilled the holes, reamed them to #40, then used my pop rivet dimpler to dimple through the skin. This resulted in just enough of a dimple on the j-channel.
After the initial sessions, I had riveted across the aft spa, and a couple of rivets down each ribAlmost to the j-channel (the horizontal row of rivet holes in the middle of the skin)
Last night and tonight I got started riveting the bottom skin onto the left wing. With the quick build wings, the inner skins are already riveted, as are the top and leading edge skins, so this one outboard skin is the only one that needs attaching. I had previously match drilled the j-channel, so I could jump right into riveting.
I started by clecoing the skin on and carefully checking the clearance with the leading edge skins. I’ve found that there’s a tiny amount of sag in the wings, which is corrected when the ribs are all aligned and clecoed to the skin. Getting the skin on, and then getting the ribs all straightened out by clecoing everything allows for some checking of clearances. I found that there’s outboard 18 inches of the bottom skin needed about 1/32 of material to be removed, so the skins can butt up to each other with no overlap.
Once I had the skin trimmed and rechecked, I got started riveting. It’s a bit of a stretch by yourself, but totally doable. I made sure to put plenty of padding down on the spar in case I dropped the bucking bar.
After two sessions (last night and tonight), I’m about 1/4 of the way through the riveting. I’m hoping I can knock this out within a week, it just depends on how much time I can spend in the garage.
Just about to get started rivetingThe yellow tape helps hold the skin away from the ribs and spar to help access
Tonight I finalized the pitot wiring. I have a separate connector at the wing root for pitot heat. Since I had previously planned for a regulated pitot tube, I had three wires run to the pitot tube. With the unregulated model, I don’t need to use the third wire, so I’m leaving it in place as another spare wire.
I unpinned the pitot heat wire from the standard Vans wiring harness and connected it to the separate Pitot heat molex connector, then ran another ground wire from the pitot heat molex connector to the ground point on the fuselage. At the pitot tube end, I installed pins on the wires from the pitot tube, but held off on installing them into the molex connector. I need to wait until I have installed the mast, and the pitot tube, routing the wires through the mast in the process. If I install the connector now, there won’t be enough room to fit the molex connector through the mast.
Anyway, it was a fairly quick job to get this all finalized.
The four connectors at the wing root are a little overkill. The two on the left are standard Vans wiring harness. The third from left is the pitot heat connector, and the right hand connector connects spare wiring that runs to the wingtip.This is where the pitot mast will attach. The wiring will plug into the molex connector on the right. The Pitot and AOA lines will attach to the white and blue lines respectively.Feeling pretty good about progress so far.I went ahead and retrieved the bottom wing skin from storage. This has some history, having been partially attached to a different left wing earlier in the build. I was very careful when I removed it from the original wing, and it’s in great shape.
Tonight I bent, flared, and fit the Garmin pitot tube. Doing this for the second time (first time was Dynon) was a lot faster, and easier because I could use the Dynon tube bends as a reference.
There are some interesting differences in the Dynon and Garmin pitot tubes. The Dynon is noticeably longer. The tubes are marked “pitot” and “AOA” on the Dynon, but unmarked on the Garmin. I added some heatshrink labels to identify the tubes, after gently blowing through them to confirm which was which.
I’m installing the unregulated Garmin pitot tube, so there’s no controller box needed. The switch on the panel will turn it on, and it’ll stay on until switched off on the panel. This is how it works on most aircraft, and since I’ll hardly ever use it, simple seems best.
Working on the pitot tubeTubes need to be bent to allow clearance from the aileron pushrod, without contacting the spar Some thought was required to remember to put the b-nuts on at the right time: after the tube is bent, before the tubes are flared. The messy touchup paint job on the pitot mast. I could have done a better job, but I’ll worry about it later.
