Dave's Sonex Builders Log

I made a new -02 main rib from one of my spares. I should have used the band saw to do the triming after drilling the relief hole, but I didn’t think of it in time. Instead, I used my Wiss snips to do the triming. They worked but I think the band saw would have been quicker. Now I’m done with the ribs except for straightening and corrosion protection. I think I’ll move on to some other parts for a while.

I completed the deburring and cleanup of all but the last two ribs. I’ve been using a 330 grit aluminum oxide sandpaper to cleanup the inside of the lightening holes and than a 400 grit wet paper to cleanup the corner reliefs. To finish the job I use a scotch brite pad to buff all the edges to a nice smooth finish.

Today I worked at cleaning up the remaining 10 ribs. I got 4 done but discovered that one was damaged so I’ll have to use a spare to make a new -02 rib.

Spent time cleaning up the rear ribs

I spent a bunch of time today working on deburring the lightening holes in the nose ribs

I complete the rib forming today and moved on to the flanging. I managed to get all of the lightening holes flanged as well. I still have a little cleanup to do on the ribs. I noticed a few burrs that I didn’t get cleanup up earlier. In any case, I’m nearly done with the ribs. Wow!

Four more ribs formed today. Almost done! The ribs that is!

Two More Ribs tonight. I also discovered that I have made one extra rib so I actually have 8 more to form.

Another 4 ribs formed today.

Over the last two days I’ve managed to get a total of 13 ribs formed. Now I only have 13 more to form. I added an extra bolt to my forming blocks to help keep the middle of the blocks together. I found that even clamped in my workmate the blocks didn’t seem to say together.