This is milestone posting with 100 hours of work accomplished. At this point, the wings are ready for their inboard and outboard top skins to be riveted.

According to Vans, with a 600 to 900 hour assembly time, I am now either 1/6th or 1/9th of my way to completion.

A few mistakes have been made and three rivets will have to be drilled out and replaced but removal of the pulled rivets is very easy.

I have a recurrence of carpel tunnel irritation so I purchased a pneumatic cleco gun. I would recommend it to anyone simply because it is so much faster to install and remove clecos. I also purchased a Ryobi 4 Volt nut driver and turned an adaptor for the deburring of holes. That also relieves excessive wrist motion. The nut driver turns at 150 rpm and has Li-ion batteries and holds a charge for a long time.

After installing the hinge brackets for the flaperons, one of my fellow EAA members asked how would I know if they are aligned properly. I came up with a laser mounted on a camera tripod and focused the laser beam through the holes in the hinge brackets. I figured that if the laser beam goes through all of the brackets and shows up on the far garage door, then the bracket holes are in line. I gauged both wings and they seemed to be aligned properly.

Currently I am at a build time of 113 hours. It just took me this long to update the blog.

Wing Construction

Now at 73 hours of construction time.

This accumulated time does not include workshop or tool modifications. I made some errors with the ribs which resulted in re-doing some work. I didn't realize that the terminology used to identify the parts was different than I was assuming. There are two sets of ribs, main and nose and within those sets is the label "L" and "R". For example W1208-L is a nose rib which I mistakenly assumed was for the left wing. The identification for each spar is given as W1206R and W1206L for left wing and right wing. I continued with this logic which caused my confusion and a total of four ribs across the two wings had to be corrected. What the "L" and "R" actually means for the ribs is simply the direction of the flange bend related to the forward longitudinal axis of the plane. (Vision of smacking forehead with hand).

I tried to proceed very cautiously to avoid these kinds of errors but my naivete catches up with me every so often. But as time passes and I complete more actions like rivet squeezing, dimpling and match drilling, I am becoming more aware of the process.

I must compliment Vans on the clarity of the assembly instructions. I found that if you study a complicated assembly procedure enough, it becomes more clear and doable.

I have called Vans builders assistance on occasion and always received a polite and comprehensive solution to my question.

One issue that was their fault cropped up when I was attaching the nose ribs to the left spar. The nose rib #12 (from outboard) rear flange did not seat flush (0.100" gap) with the spar when the attach bracket holes were clecoed. This in turn resulted in the nose rib protruding beyond the the line of the other nose ribs. I first thought this was an improperly made rib - too long. But that seems to be unlikely since all of the nose ribs are probably made with the same die. The problem actually was an improperly positioned attach bracket. The bracket had too much depth and was used at a different location on the spar. Someone must have picked out of the wrong bin. Since the attach bracket was already riveted to the spar with large rivets, replacing it was not an option. Calling Vans and speaking to Ken Scott, he suggested to cleco to the spar and re-drill the six holes in between the original holes. He also said that these extra holes will make the plane lighter. Gee, I hope it doesn't go faster than the FAA maximum allowed now.

I have finished the structure for both wings and am currently installing the stall warning switch.

One photo shows a modified engine crane I bought to enable me to move these awkward wing structures around the shop.

Next is the skinning process.