Right Tank Stiffeners, Z-Brackets, and Countersinking

May 27, 2011

First thing, I have to give some mad props to Van’s.

If you remember from yesterday, I put in a web order with Van’s for some stuff. At the top of my list was that leading edge rib I messed up a few posts ago, and I FORGOT TO ORDER THE RIB!!!

Anyway, here’s how a short interaction with Van’s (e-mail):

Me: Good morning, Barb…[snip]…Is there any way you can add an item to my order? I need one of the following, copied from “the list”: W-408-1R, NOTCHED NOSE RIB 032, $23.80. If not, I understand…it was my error. But if so, thank you so much!

Within an hour (and definitely before normal business hours in OR):

Barb: Andrew, I have forwarded this on to our parts department who will download
the web orders this morning and get it added to your order. Barb

Then, after about another hour:

Dear Andrew,

The part was added to your order as you requested. I just caught it
prior to being shipped this morning.

Pam
Van’s order dept.

Oh man, Van’s is awesome. Also, I figured out from the charge that shipping (UPS ground) and handling from Van’s was about $15. Not bad.

Anyway, being a Friday, I was looking for something relatively painless to do tonight. I pulled out the T-711 bundle and started in on the stiffeners.

Here's the bundle.

I ended up getting all of the stiffeners ready, for both tanks. I’ll put the ones for the left tank away until I’m ready to do that tank.

Below you can see 3 of the four sizes of stiffeners. The fourth size is pretty small, and I left them out of the picture.

Three sets of long, one set of kinda long, one set of kinda short.

Lastly, I took off all of the vinyl. If I were smarter, I would have pulled the vinyl off before cutting them. It would have been a lot easier.

Pile-o'-vinyl.

It was a little late to fire up the scotchbrite wheel, so I pulled out the right z-brackets and clecoed them to the spar. I spent a good five minutes staring at the plans to make sure I had them in the right orientation.

I'm doing this because I never matchdrilled the rear flanges of the interior ribs. The z-brackets and baffle are full-size holes, so I just need to run the drill through them with the flanges in place.

Drilling some holes.

Moved the clecos, drilled the other three.

Then, since I wasn’t too tired yet, I broke out the microstop countersink and started countersinking the skin-to-baffle holes. You do this so the baffle is easy to slide in place with the all pro-seal flying around. If it were dimpled, it would be harder.

Countersinking a skin this thin definitely leaves a knife-edge, but that’s what Van’s calls for here.

I’m planning on using the thicker tank dimple dies everywhere else, which should leave a little extra room for proseal underneath the rivet head, but I couldn’t bring myself to deepen these countersinks at all. We’ll see if it works out.

Looks good to me.

Much countersinking ensued...

A closeup, for those of you who are interested.

Anyway, it as a nice night in the garage. 1 hour, and getting closer to the black death.

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Posted by Andrew

Riveted Some More Right Leading Edge Ribs

May 23, 2011

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Well, after a very relaxing week-long vacation, I got back to work on the airplane.

I had previously prepped and primed three right leading edge ribs, so I figured this was a good time to get them permanently assembled.

Here’s a shot of the leading edge and the three ribs 50% clecoed.

Ready for riveting, sir.

The ammunition.

The rivet gun and bucking bar.

After setting half of them, I removed the clecos.

Not shown, I put rivets in the empty holes here, then shifted the tape over.

Guess who made an appearance when she heard the rivet gun.

IT'S GINGER!!!

I’m pretty sure when Jack heard the rivet gun, he headed underneath the bed.

After the top of the leading edge done for those three ribs, I flipped it over and did the bottom.

After all was said and done, I had 87 rivets set, none needed to be drilled out.

Here are some shop head shots.

Here's the fourth rib...

...fifth rib...

...and sixth (outboardmost) rib.

I just HAD to set it on the skeleton to see how it looked.

It was soooo light without all of those clecos.

Here's the top side...

...and the bottom side.

Then, I started pulling out the blue plastic. I only pulled out the sections where I didn’t need more riveting or where the leading edge landing light is going to go.

Pulling off plastic.

Shiny.

Sometimes, I worry that my careful devinyling lines are a little overboard, but then I see these primer edges, and it makes the extra time worth it.

Nice clean lines.

One hour today, and 87 perfect rivets.

(Honesty alert: I did have two small dings, both on the top surface. I hate it when I forget to start with the bottom, where no one will see any mistakes.)

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: devinyling, Leading edge, Riveting | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Set Eight Rivets

May 13, 2011

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Well, today is Friday the 13th AND the 500th (calendar) day of my build. Coincidence?

Of course, what else would it be?

The first day was 12/29/2009. 500 days ago. Estimating 2000 hours, I’m at 245 hours, 500 days…carry the one…calculator sounds…4081.633 days, or 11 years. Wait, I’m through 1.5 years, so…about 9.5 years to go!

Bummer.

Anyway, the primer dried from last night, so I grabbed some of the blind rivets provided in my leading edge kit (can’t remember the rivet part numbers) and got to pulling.

8 blind rivets.

Here’s how they look after pulling.

Not too bad.

Yikes. Not so pretty, but that's the way they are supposed to be.

Then, I set the other 3 nutplates (8 rivets total) and clecoed the three primed ribs into the leading edge.

It looks like an airplane part.

Next up, riveting!

0.5 hours, 8 rivets. Booyeah.

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Posted by Andrew

Primed Three More Leading Edge Ribs

May 12, 2011

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Well, having primed leading edge ribs R4 through R6, I decided I better get them primed.

Before I could get going on the fifth and sixth ribs, I needed to crack open the leading edge landing light instructions again.

I want to make sure I get the holes for the light bracket nutplates done first.

Okay, looks like I need to go find the 10-32 nutplates.

K1000-3 nutplates...

Found them, then got the #30 to enlarge the center hole, put a cleco in, drilled one of the ears to #40, put another cleco in, and drilled the last ear.

Not many pictures with both sizes of clecos in them.

After doing all 4.

Guess what size drill I had to go find.

Yup. A 3/16″ drill…

...for the center hole.

After getting those ribs washed and the first coat of primer on them, I moved my attention back to the leading edge light holes. I forgot to drill the lens attach holes before. I held up the template, marked some holes, and fired the #40 through there.

I should have used my drill stop. Looks like I left little circles.

Same on the bottom side.

Finally, the ribs dried enough for me to bring them in the garage.

Nice ribs.

Maybe this weekend I’ll get to set some more rivets.

0.5 hours.

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: Leading Edge Landing Lights, prep, prime | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Some More Work on Right Leading Edge Ribs

May 10, 2011

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Well, another boring night in the garage. I did dimple rib #4, then prep ribs 5 and 6.

Here's an action shot of me dimpling rib #4.

Rib #6 was providing some rigidity for my leading edge in the cradle, so when I was done prepping #5, I clecoed it back in place so I could get rrib #6.

The right leading edge on the bench, in the cradle.

I don’t remember why I took this picture, maybe just to show I finished ribs 5 and 6.

Two ribs?

Anyway, I’ll need to get the leading edge landing light thing sorted out before finalizing these two ribs (the bracket is mounted laterally between these two ribs.

One half hour of glorious rib prep.

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Posted by Andrew

Prepared Right Leading Edge Rib Number 4

April 28, 2011

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(sarcasm)Whoa, what an exciting night!(/sarcasm)

I managed about 26 minutes in the garage tonight.

The picture below tells the short story. I grabbed leading edge rib #4, and deburred it, then redid some of my fluting, made sure the flanges were 90°, then went ahead and scuffed it with a maroon scotchbrite pad.

Maybe this weekend I’ll get the 5th and 6th ribs done, then get them primed and riveted to the leading edge rib.

From left to right: Deburring, Fluting, Straightening, and Scuffing.

Rounded up to 0.5 hours.

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Posted by Andrew

Started Banging Rivets on the Right Leading Edge

April 22, 2011

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OH MY GOSH!

ANDREW’S

BUILDING AGAIN!

Well, even though my last post said I was getting back into the mood of airplane building, it’s been almost a MONTH since I spent time on the project.

Yikes.

Anyway, I had a day off today, and I managed to spend a couple hours in the airplane factory.

Let’s see if I remember how to take and post picture.

After a little garage cleanup, I got the right leading edge out and got back to deburring all of the holes. I think deburring took about 30 minutes.

My hand hurt after deburring all of these. I need to deburr more often.

Once done, I took the cradles off the skin and opened her up to do some scuffing.

I haven't totally finished the leading edge light installation, but I can do that after the ribs are installed.

Then, I broke out the c-frame and started dimpling. This actually takes awhile, because you have to be careful not to punch any extra holes in the skin.

Even though I can reach these dimples with my squeezer, I think you get better, crisper dimples from the c-frame.

Here's me doing the forward-most hole in the top of the leading edge skin.

AHHHHHHHH!

THE DREADED

FIGURE-8!

Well, after 242 hours, and thousands of dimpled holes, I finally joined the club.

To tell you the truth, it’s really not that noticeable, except for the fact that it is on the top of the wing (AND YOU’LL ALL NOTICE IT)!

Anyway, I used some flat sets and pounded it flat, then filed it down a little, and dimpled the primary hole.

Here's the extra dimple pounded flat.

And the orginal hole dimpled. still needs a little filing here.

I could throw a fit and order a new leading edge from Van’s, or I could just build on, and cover this with filler and paint.

(I don’t think I can polish the wings anymore.)

Well, in the interest of building on, I decided to do a little riveting today. I had a couple ribs prepped (my legend: R2 and R3), so I got them prepped, primed, and clecoed in place. (Making sure to cleco one rib on either side of those so the leading edge was perfectly straight.

Here are the ribs clecoed in place.

Of course, I use my normal tape-over-each-rivet-head trick to minimize scratches, dings, and marring.

I shot and bucked every other one (no mistakes) and then replaced the clecoes with rivets, moved the tape over, and finished the row.

(Needless to say, I started with the bottom of the leading edge, so any mistakes due to out-of-practice riveting wouldn’t be so obvious.)

Gratuitous shop head shot on the lower surface of the first rib.

Gratuitous shop head shot on the lower surface of the second rib.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. (Crap, I meant flip, cleco, rivet, repeat.)

Gratuitous shop head shot on the upper surface of the first rib.

Gratuitous shop head shot on the upper surface of the second rib.

Umm, did we not have enough shop head shots today?

Andrew, STOP TAKING PICTURE OF SHOP HEADS.

Here’s the “club” rivet. I think I’m going to leave it like this, and just watch it for cracks, but someone will probably tell me I need to drill this out and replace it with some other solution. We’ll see.

(big. depressed. sigh.)

Seriously, I need to control myself with this camera.

Oh, and I was having trouble counting rivets today, which was weird.

So I just started writing them down. Can you guys check my math?

3 hours, 58 rivets, 1 figure-8. Boo.

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2 Comments | Wings | Tagged: cleco, Deburr, dimple, figure-8, Rivet, skin, Van's | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Started Prepping Right Leading Edge

March 25, 2011

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Jeesh, I can’t seem to get a minute away from our third puppy to head outside and do any work on the airplane.

Tonight, finally, during halftime (go UNC!) and just after the game (wuhoo UNC!), I managed to go outside and do a couple things.

I didn’t want to do anything major; I really just wanted to go out there and get back up to speed. I’m kind of in the middle of rib prep on the leading edge, so I disassembled a few of the leading edge ribs and worked on what I labelled R3, or the third rib from the inboard side.

After deburring (back up, looks like I forgot to matchdrill some of the holes….sigh). Okay, after drilling, deburring, edge finishing, and scuffing, I now I have two right leading edge ribs ready for primer.

R2 and R3 (my numbering) ready for primer.

After pulling out the rest of the ribs (including the two outboard-ish ribs shown below), I went ahead and drilled pilot holes for the nutplate holes that are needed for the leading edge landing light installations. I had previously marked these while they were assembled with the leading edge using the provided template.

The two outboard ribs, now with pilot holes drilled for the bracket (the two small holes just above the lightening hole).

So here’s my thought. I really hate rib prep, so I’m basically going to do one at a time, then get it installed in the leading edge. To do that, I’ll need to prep (deburr, dimple) and prime the appropriate parts of the leading edge, and prep one additional rib. Generally, you want the surrounding structure in place for whatever you are riveting. Hence the need for the “next” rib to be clecoed in place while you are riveting a particular rib. If you don’t have the next one in place (have everything perfectly aligned), then the final structure may not be aligned. Make sense? No? Oh well.

So, I put the leading edge in my cradles and got to work with deburring. I got all the exterior holes deburred, did some edge-finishing with my permagrit block and my edge deburring tool and a scotchbrite pad, then started deburring the interior before my hand got tired.

Leading edge during some prep.

Oh, and out of laziness, I screwed the right tank loosely into position instead of taking it back upstairs. I think it’s going to be awhile before I get back to working on it.

It kind of has a funny shape with no ribs in it.

It was a short night, but got me back into the mood, so I’ll call it a success.

1 hour.

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Leave a Comment » | Wings | Tagged: cradle, Deburr, dimple, edge finish, Leading edge, prep, primer, tank, Wing | Permalink
Posted by Andrew

Some Right Leading Edge Work

March 13, 2011

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Wow, I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since my last work on the airplane.

Taking care of this little puppy (trying to find him a home) has taken its toll on our schedules and ability to sleep at night. Also, I’ve been busy at work logging time in something a little bigger than an RV.

Anyway, back to building.

I spent a few minutes taking some time to get reoriented. I couldn’t decide whether to work on the leading edge light or start working on ribs. The plan is to get the right leading edge assembled, then get back to prep on the left wing to catch it up.

I spent some time deburring, dimpling, and scuffing the joint plate, then focused on the inboard leading edge rib.

Crap. These holes are too close to the web.

Crap, I didn’t have it positioned properly when drilling.

There's no way I'm going to be able to dimple these holes.

The most important part of this picture is the sad face.

Time to order another part (along with rudder skins, maybe.)

After wiping the tears off of my cheeks, I moved on to the leading edge light hole. I knew over the last few weeks I needed to figure out a way to clean up the leading edge landing light holes, so I went to Northern Tool and bought a $25 angle die-grinder and a few accoutrements to go with it.

Tools!

Looks fancy.

I plugged it in and gave it a go, and was very happy with the die grinder, but it wasn’t what I was looking for for the leading edge holes.

I broke out the jigsaw (gasp!) and put a fine tooth metal cutting blade in.

Carefully, I enlarged the leading edge hole right on the line, and spent a few minutes cleaning up the cut. It needs some more work, but it’s okay for now. This was a lot faster than trying to do it with a file.

Right leading edge after cleaning up my jigsaw enlargement.

Finally, I pulled out one of the other leading edge ribs and prepped it (deburr holes and edges, dimple, scuff, etc.)

For the dimpling step, the nose of my economy squeezer sticks out a little further than the female die, so I used the regular grinder side of my bench grinder and ground it down a little.

Now it won't scratch the web of the ribs as I dimple.

Here's one leading edge rib prepped.

I still have a few (a lot!) more to do (including some nutplate attachments for the outboard two ribs for the light bracket), but then I’ll get the leading edge prepped and maybe get one of the big pieces put together. That will make me happy.

I’m going to work over the next few weeks to put in some more regular airplane hours. I need to keep moving if I’m ever going to get it done.

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Posted by Andrew

Deburred Right Fuel Tank Ribs, Bottom Wing Skins

February 27, 2011

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Well, not much today, but I got all the right tanks ribs edge finished and then made sure to run the leading edges of each of the ribs over the scotchbrite wheel to remove any lumpy areas (so as not to create any bulges in the tank skin when the ribs are clecoed in).

Then, in the morning, I brought the right lower inboard skin in the kitchen and started the deburring dance.