Michael – Page 95 – RV8-Hangar

Flanging and Fluting

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 4 Hours

After getting all the edge finishing finished this morning and running some errands I got back at it in the Hangar. First up was to straighten the flanges of all the main ribs. So I broke out the tool I made, from Jason Hess’s build, and screwed it to the bench.

The idea is to bring the flange back to a 90° to the webbing. This tool makes that job fairly easy. Here is a before and after photo of the end flange of one of the main ribs.

Once I finished up all the flanging I moved on the the fluting. This straightens the ribs from fore to aft aligning them with the skin holes. Here is a before and after shot looking from the top of the wing down. You can see the bow in the rib one the first one and it removed on the second.

I finished both of those tasks in 4 hours and had them back on the shelves.

I decided to call it a day and clean up the Hangar. I will get a good day in tomorrow and this time I will get some assembly in!

Main Wing Rib Deburring Done

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 6 Hours

I finished up the edge deburring of all 28 of the wing main ribs this morning. Whew it was a lot of work making sure all nicks and machine marks are all gone as well as scuffing all the surfaces. I decided to scuff at this stage as I found scuffing the flanges after fluting was more work.

Next up to straighten the flanges to 90° and flute them to make the ribs flat.

Ribs…

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 6 Hours

I finished up the left wing main ribs deburring and scuffing this weekend and started the right wing. Man these things are a pain! Just tedious work and so I just put my butt on the stool, turned on the TV to watch some football and went to work. Hoping to have the right wing finished up by next weekend in between my flight schedule. Then I will straighten the flanges and flute them too, that process won’t take near as long.

Ribs..

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 6 Hours

No photos today just an update on the progress. My flight schedule has had me on several multi-day trips over the last couple of weeks. So my progress has been slow but steady. My goal is to knock out two ribs every chance I get. So the work continues and I’ll update when I get to the next steps.

Ribs.

Posted on October 13, 2013 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 2 hours

No photos today as you have seen my deburring skills already. This is the order of tasks that I need to accomplish on every rib.

1 – Deburr the lightening holes, edges and tab cuts.
2 – Scuff all surfaces.
3 – Straighten flanges to 90°.
4 – Straighten the ribs by fluting.
5 – Prime
6 – Assemble

Right now I’m just doing steps 1-2 which take a long time for each rib! I will move on to the next steps after this big chore is finished!