Right Wing Top Skins Clecoed to Skeleton

Alright, I was having a bad day with the rear spar, so after I got most of it riveted on, I moved on to the skins.

I jumped the gun a little and clecoed on the top outboard skin (jumped the gun because the spar wasn’t re-leveled and the inboard skin outboard edge actually underlaps the outboard top skin.

Anyway, with just two clecos in the skin, I was able to thread some string around a cleco on either end of the spar to jack up the center of the rear spar.

The string is supposed to line up with the top of the smaller holes on the right.

After some jacking, the spar is now perfectly straight.

Nice and straight.

Next, I pulled out the top outboard skin. This is the right version (they are actually the same from Van’s, but I had pulled off the vinyl on the side I intended to be the interior side for the wing walk doubler.

The devinyled part in the foreground is where the wingwalk doubler will sit.

Many builders before me have complained that Van’s wants you to trim the provided doubler from 10″ to 9 3/8″.

Many builders have left it at 10″, then matchdrilled to the skin, then found out there is a matchdrilled hole that violates edge distance.

It would probably be okay, but why include that extra 5/8″ strip of 26″ long aluminum if you don’t have to?

IT’S WEIGHT SAVINGS!!!

Anyway, my snips do a great job with this aluminum, so I got to it and started edge finishing.

”]Then, you line up the forward edge of the doubler 9/16″ from the forward edge of the top skin.

See my little sharpie mark?

Then, tape that bad boy up, assuring that the inboard edges are flush.

Taped!

Then, you flip the skin over and start matchdrilling. I used clecos every so often to hold everything together nicely.

About halfway through, I lifted up the assembly to check on progress.

Looking good.

After more drilling…

Done!

I pulled apart the skins to clean everything up. Lot’s of aluminum shavings everywhere.

Sorry for the blurry picture.

Then, I spent a few minutes getting the top skins clecoed on.

Wuhoo! it's starting to look like a wing!

This is the less exciting under side.

This was a nice positive finish to counteract my riveting blunders earlier. I’ll talk to Van’s about the rear spar.

I hope I don’t have to replace it.

0.5 hours of clecoing fun.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Wings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.