Author Archives: Michael

Time: 5 Hours

I got in the Hangar around 10am so I wouldn’t bug my neighbors with all the riveting I was planning on doing. My task for today was to rivet the outboard bottom skin on the left wing. The process was the same as I documented yesterday on the right wing. I took a few less breaks today and had the knowledge of yesterday’s session to help speed up today. I was able to move along fairly quickly today as I knew just where to put my arms for the difficult rivets compared to yesterday when I had to sit and think a little on how the heck I would get a particular rivet. Once I finished the skin rivets I turned my attention to the pitot mast. It has 5 rivets and I also needed to use some ProSeal to seal up the gap where it goes through the skin. I mixed up the ProSeal and made a bead along the pitot mast and the flange it is welded to.

I carefully slid the mast into position without getting ProSeal everywhere and checko’ed it in place. Before I did all of this I had placed the mast into position so I could figure what length rivets I would need as the plan call outs would now be wrong as they don’t take into account this mast. Riveting the mast just tool a few minutes and I was done.

I then removed the flap so I could get all the remaining hinge rivets.

Unlike yesterday and the one ding, today I had 3 small dings and I was beating myself up a little for those. They are all in spots where the bucking bar was difficult to get a perfect hold and I wasn’t able to hold it as still as I liked. When I pulled the trigger the bar jumped a little and twisted causing the corner to hit the skin slightly. These all made a “tent” as I call it, the dent is pushing outward rather than inward as a normal dent would be. I’m assured that a good paint/body guy will make these disappear. These things really bug my OCD as I can’t do a “do over” and they happen so fast. It’s like hearing the rivet gun go bam bam bam bam dink and you just know by the sound that you slipped. Ok enough of that I will get over it and these are the bottoms and no one will ever see them!

I removed the blue film and cleaned all the surfaces up and placed the access hole plates into position.

Here is where the will reside for the next year or so until they are ready for the fuselage.

So that’s it the wings are done!! Now I can work on cleaning up the Hangar this summer and restocking my supplies for the fuselage. I’m creating a list for items to shop for at OshKosh and hopefully will get some bargains.

Time: 7 Hours

I had some office chores today that kept from the Hangar until after lunch. When I did get there I had only one goal, get one wing finished. I started the riveting at the overlap of the outboard and inboard skin where they meet the rear spar. I worked along the spar and down the ribs(forward) as I went.

After the first two bays or ribs I could no longer reach the holes via the access plate hole. So I used an idea from another builder and pulled the skin away from the wing and held it with some Gorilla Tape. This allowed me to stand on the inside if the skin and rivet. Riveting the ribs was a breeze like this but the run along the main and rear spar got increasingly more difficult as I got closer to the next rib.

They all turned out pretty nice as I went along. I took plenty of breaks as it was a lot of bending and stretching as I went along.

I was pretty happy with myself that I hadn’t made any dings, oops for thinking that, as I had only 12 rivets left to do on the very outboard rib I let the bucking bar slip and made a nice little tent/dent on the skin. Ugh oh well this is the bottom and a painter will make that disappear. I finished up by removing the flap so I could get to the rivets on the hinge and this skin. This I hit with the squeezer pretty fast. I reattached the flap and pulled all the blue film off. With a few rags and my cleaner I had the wing looking pretty nice. I also grabbed the access hole plates and put them on with a couple screws.

I will repeat this whole process this weekend and finish up the left wing. Technically they won’t be completely done until the fiberglass work is done but I will wait to do that near the end of the build I think.

Time: 5 Hours

Today’s task was to install or temporally install the SafeAir pitot mast. This will eventually hold the pitot tube for my airspeed indication. I plan on using a Dynon heated pitot tube that has a AOA capability built in. There is no reason to buy that now as I can’t drill it until the wings are on and I get the plane into a level flight position as you need to adjust the pitot to be level with that attitude. But I can install the mast now so that was the plan. I went over to my friends to take a loom at his and make sure my plans were valid on where I needed to mount it. From there it’s easy as they give you a template to use. First was to cut the template out and make some reference lines on the skin from the edge of the main spar.

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I then aligned the template on the skin after I applied some blue tape to protect the skin.

I then used the template and traced the inside of the cutout. After removing the template I used my unibit to drill a hole at each end that was close to the radius of the ends. I then removed the blue tape and replaced the template to use as a guide for cleaning up the edges close to the outline.

I used my Dremal to do the work using various bits, the best being a 1/4″ drum sandpaper bit. I would work a little and then place the mast under the skin to see where I needed to remove material. As I got close I switched to using my hands and some 180 grit sandpaper. I’m real happy with the fit and I have a pretty even gap around the whole mast.

I then checko’ed the skin back on the wing and slid the mast into position. I used my deep reach vise grips to clamp the mast into position. Once I was happy I had it just right I used my 12″ drill bit to match drill the three holes along the spar. I then slid the template back over the mast and used the two marks to drill the aft holes for the mast. I just want through the skin and marked the mast. I then removed everything and finished the drilling on my workbench.

I had to countersink the two aft holes in the mast to accept the dimples from the skin.

After getting that done I decided to mix up a little ProSeal to put on the inboard and outboard end of the electrical conduit. This is just to make sure it never moves. I just used a popsicle stick and smeared it around the tube along the inside edge of the two ribs.

Before putting the skin back on I wanted to work out how the pitot/AOA tubes run through the bell crank. I have seen several different ideas using clamps or zip ties. I decided to make an angle bracket the would tie to the two outboard bolts of the bell crank in which I could put two snap bushings in to hold the tubes. This is what I came up with and how it looks installed.

With those items done I only have one task left to do and that’s to rivet the outboard bottom skins. That will be my goal for the next 3 days.