Category: Wings

I finished sanding the large oval hole. Next I setup a fence on my drill press to allow me to drill all of the 3/32 inch pilot hole in a straight line. I clamped a piece of hardwood to the drill press table 1/4 of an inch from the centerline of the drill bit. This lets me drill exactly 1/4 inch from the edge of the part. All I have to do is line up each of the marks measured from the end of the attache plate.

Well, I got back at things again today. I find that an hour at a time is about right and gives me some thinking time. I finished marking out the attach plates and then cut them out on the band saw. I keep remembering to use a candle on the blade before any serious cutting and it sure keeps the blade clean. I used the bench sander after cutting to start cleaning up the edges.

I started with one of my previously created strips of aluminum that is almost the correct width. I cleaned up the long edges using the vixen file, mill file, sandpaper and scotchbrite. The brought the strip to the correct width. Next I started laying out the part using an ultrafine sharpie right on the aluminum. I had to measure one of the angles at the nose of the part as it was not dimensioned on the prints.

I cut out the blanks for the main spar center web from flat 1/8" sheet that I received from Aircraft Spruce.

Marked, cut, filed, sanded and drilled out the holes.

Marked, cut, filed, sanded and scotch brited the parts. Marked the pilot holes and drilled

Marked, cut, filed, sanded and scotch brited the part.

I made the root rib attach angles for the trailing end of the root ribs. I started by opening and closing the raw angles to the correct angle. After getting the angles opened up and closed up correctly I layed out the cuts and finished the angles

With the first angle done the second one did not take too long.

I started by opening up the angle of the material that I had cut to length. I started out using hardwood as shown in the pictures but quickly changed to a steel backup plate (with aluminum covering) when the hardwood broke. I also used some WD-40 as a lubricant to help the angle slide on the plate. The layout work was the same as the previous two parts so making the first one of these angles when fairly quickly.