Time: 4 Hours
I worked for several hours today working on the wing tip hinge modification. I removed the top and bottom hinge on the left wing and countersunk the fiberglass filler strips. I also used the pneumatic squeezer to dimple all the holes in the top and bottom wing skin. With those tasks done I clecko’ed the hinge halves back into the wing skin and riveted them in place.
After I had the left wing skin hinges done I grabbed the left wing tip to work on its hinge halves. The idea is to rivet theses just as I did with the wing side with some modifications. The first is that I would use soft rivets, still aluminum solid rivets just a softer version, so that I wouldn’t damage the fiberglass. The second would be to apply a layer of epoxy between the hinge and the inside surface of the wing tip. The third thing would be to drill 1/4″ holes between the river holes on the hinge flange. This would allow me to put a small amount of epoxy/cotton flox into the hole essentially creating a epoxy rivet in between the soft rivets. All this to mate an aluminum hinge to a fiberglass tip. Here’s how it looked after I was done.
I will let the left side cure overnight and start working on the right side tomorrow.
