Wing Construction

March 6-21March 1-5
	I must have done something right in past life! I just scored some very cool metal working tools! I got a bending brake, two sheers, a metal punch, and next week I'll be picking up a millrite milling machine. Thanks to Paul for hooking me up! On the project, I'm still plodding along cutting and bending stiffener angles.
March 6-21
	I suck! I'll admit it. I've done nothing on my project for damn near 2 months (probably closer to three). But the weather is improving, and my desire to dive back in is returning. C'mon good weather!
March 22-April 16
	more nothing
April 17-24
	I traveled to Sun n Fun again this year. Man, did I need it. I met up with Chris Silver, Dan Melton, Jim Ash, Kevin Deutscher, Jim Clevenger, Demo Dave, Budd Davisson, and "The Bob". Jim and Kevin got the lion's share of my talking time. I apologize if I seem a bit reserved in person. I'm usually a bit shy at first then warm up as I get comfortable with someone. I didn't spend nearly enough time with Dan and Chris. I should have gotten their cell numbers so we could head out for some after show beverages. shrug next year right? I spent a lot of time welding this year. If anyone goes to these shows, please, please, please take the time to visit the workshops. They are invaluable. A special thanks goes out to Carl and Sheila Forrester. They spent numerous hours with me in the welding tent. All of the workshop volunteers are the unsung heroes of Sun n Fun. They give their time and skills to help us reach our goals. Thank you all. Now it's time to get back to building. I believe the fire has been stoked. Build on!
April 25-29
	Oooooh, I'm finishing out the month on a strong note. I've moved my stuff back out into the garage. I've still got waaaay too much crap out there, but It's getting better. I've just about finished the Van's toolkit project (I have to find the damned handle wire), I finished bending and cutting the 45 degree angles on the nose rib stiffeners. I almost started drilling holes in them! Can you believe it?! Then Sunday I visited a local RV builder and helped him move his RV-8 fuselage from his basement to his garage. A good weekend all around.
April 30
	I did some quality head scratching, and after that I actually drilled some holes. Here's a picture of the jig I set up to drill the holes in my stiffener angles. Pretty crude, but effective. The angle is indexed into the oak board. Just line up the edge of the board to the mark on the backer board and drill.
May 1-16
	I got some more work done on the stiffeners, but most of the last two weeks was spent building a deck off the back of my house for the Mrs. She comes first. last night I finished drilling the stiffener angles for the nose ribs and started deburring them.
May 17
	I started match drilling the stiffener angles to the nose ribs. If was a simple task really. One that I shouldn't have hemmed and hawed about for nearly as long as I did. After finishing up tonight, I've come to the conclusion that I should have proceeded in a different order. My original line of thought was that I would simply mark the pieces, and keep track of them as I progressed through the priming process. What I forgot to remember was that I will be scotch-briteing the ribs and stiffeners before alodining and priming. Not a big deal, I'll just tie them together with some safety wire to keep them paired up. But, it would have been simpler to drill them out after the priming sessions. On the bright side, I'm actually starting to assemble pieces!
May 18-28
	OK,OK, so I haven't posted in a week or so. I haven't been idle. Not really. I've finished clecoing the stiffeners to the nose ribs. I've also decided on a method for priming my wing ribs. I'm going to give Stewart Systems a try. I am not a big fan of harmful solvents, and stuff like that. Stewart Systems is a one part water borne primer/sealer. We'll see how it works once I get my hands on it.
	One thing that kept me busy over the last few weeks was this honey-do project. Paula wanted a deck for Mother's day. Paula got a deck for Mother's day. I know my place :).
	I've also bent up a couple of test spars at home. I think I'm just about ready to have a go at the real thing. Maybe even this weekend. I've got the brake lined up. The Quonset Air Museum has a workshop full of all sorts of metalworking tools. One of which happens to be an 8 ft pan brake. They also have an 8 ft shear. Not to mention some very knowledgeable people who have offered to help me do the job. Stan Essex is one of those people. When I actually do the bend I'll snap a picture or two of Stan and his work. The test spars seem to fit just fine. Which should mean my numbers are pretty close. Here's one picture of a two foot test spar.
May 29-June 14
	I still haven't bent up the spars. Once again other projects took precedence. I did start playing with the Stewart products. So far they seem to work as advertised. I was all worried about spraying and it turns out it's fairly straight forward and easy.
August 9
	I've cleaned and sprayed a few ribs, but haven't done much else in the past month on the project. I've been focusing most of my free time on getting work done around the house/farm, and working on getting my private pilots license. At this point I'm doing my solo cross country flights. I've got one done so far. I was set to do some more but the 172 I rent has been out of service for the past two weeks. I'm hoping that I'll be able to finish up sometime in the next couple of months and then get back into the build. This past weekend saw a big step toward that goal. Cleaning. My work area had become a giant dumping place. It's now set up as two distinct areas. One for the "workshop", and one for "storage". We will see how I do keeping the distinction.
September 13
	You'll never guess where I found myself tonight. I actually made it out into the shop!! I actually got some work done on my project. Nothing major, but at least I was out there doing something.
September 17
	Another night out in the shop. I am still working on cleaning and etching the nose ribs. I might even get to spraying some of them this week!
October 2
	Well, I did manage to spray a few more ribs with the primer sealer. I'll just keep nibbling away at it. I already tried not doing anything for most of this year and waddyaknow. . . it didn't build itself. On the bright side I'm very, very close to my checkride. I had a practice checkride this monday. I won't say it was an abortion, but things could have gone better. Thankfully it was just a practice. Tonight after work I have a practice oral exam with my instructor, then it's off to my bullseye pistol league. I don't expect to get out in the garage/workshop tonight.
October 25
	Today I finally made it. I took my check ride and became a private pilot! I'm writing this a week later, and I still don't think it's quite sunk in yet. I'm hoping that with this mission accomplished I can once again put my focus on my build. I did a quick write-up of the event you can find it here: The Check-ride Report

New Year. . . enter 2008

February 19, 2008
	It's been a while. I suppose I could apologize for the lack of progress, but I won't. I did stall a bit :) I'll grant you that much. But all in all it was a case of life getting in the way. I haven't given up, or moved on to something new. Other things just moved up higher on the "to do" list for the past year. I had hoped to dive back into this project in early January, but there was this tree out in West Greenwich that had other ideas. It reached out and pulled me right off of my dirt bike. Now that I have sufficiently healed I decided to get back to it. Over the past week I dusted off my plans, cleared the workbench, placed the spar material on the workbench, and started in on the figuring needed to make my spar blanks. This marks the third time I've started in on this process. I think I have most of my ducks in a row, and God (and my Mrs.) willing, I'll have some bent up blanks in the near future.
March 27-30
	I actually got to work again, and I have to say it felt good. I needed a way to cut the spar blanks straight. Since I didn't have an 8 ft sheer available; I took a chapter from Wayne Massey's build and created a straight edge out of MDF and used it as my clamp and router guide. I took a full sheet of MDF and cut it in half lengthwise. I took one of the factory edges and mounted a 3/4" piece of aluminum angle to it. I used that angle as my guide for the router bearing.
	Here's a picture of one of the main spar blanks all set up and ready to cut. I added a handle in the middle of the top piece of MDF to help ease the job of positioning the sheet of aluminum. One sheet of .032 down. One to go.
April 1
	Last night I measured up and cut a few more blanks. It looks like I'll need to dip into a third sheet of .032 to finish up my blanks. I suppose if I had found an 8 ft sheer I wouldn't have had any waste and might have made it work. Luckily, I already have another sheet sitting here in the garage.
April 3
	Another hour out in the garage last night. got a few more blanks cut. If I am correct I only have one more spar blank left to cut. Then I can start bending (finally. . . honestly I don't know why I dragged my feet so long on this.) update: all of the spar blanks have been cut and are leaning against the wall waiting to be bent.
August 6
	Three months go by quickly. I've been doing little bits here and there, but it wasn't until late last week that I "got serious" again. I, once again, cleared all of the clutter and reorganized my work space. I set up my painting area again. I'm going to finish up painting the ribs that have been sitting patiently, waiting for me to get my arse in gear. After that I'll start riveting the stiffeners to the ribs. Oh, yeah. I found another 8 ft brake to bend up my spars. I'm heading there next week (fingers crossed). Can you believe it? These pieces are starting to look like airplane parts!
August 7-18
	I ran out of paint. granted I only had a quart to start with. I've moved on to the gagillion stiffener angles and attach angles for the ribs while I wait for more painting supplies to be delivered. I've been pretty good about getting out there nightly even if only for a little bit. Here's a picture of a few of the stiffeners and the tools I used to cut and bend them. Some are bent, some not. If I remember, I'll get a picture of all of them together and all bent up.
August 19-August 30
	I've finished cutting and bending all of the rib stiffener angles and attachment angles. Man am I glad that's done. I've also made my first rivet order. I could actually be assembling a part or two in short order.
September 1-3
	The day finally came when I got to set a rivet for real on my project! Yeah, I know it's just the tip of the iceberg. But, it's nice to have finally assembled something. I got the rivet order last yesterday, but didn't have time to get out to the shop last night. So, I got up early, fed the horses, and snuck out to the shop to sort the rivet order. Once I had that done I couldn't help but pull out my riveting tools and set a couple. Four of many more to come.
September 4
	Well, it was bound to happen. I botched up a couple of rivets. They needed to be removed, hopefully without damaging the parts. After seeking advice from the web in general, and rivetbangers.com in particular, I had a go at removing the offending rivets. Success! Oh yeah, somehow I managed to put stiffener 10r with rib 12r and rib 10r with stiffener 12r and even though it didn't seem right when I was working on the first pair. I forged ahead and mated them. I wasn't until I tried to set the 3rd and fourth rivet that I realized that I had the wrong parts together. No great damage, but I'll have to make one of the stiffener angles over again. I got about 3/4 of the nose ribs riveted together last night.
September 5-9
	more progress. I finished up (all but the one I messed up) riveting the nose rib stiffener angles. I'm now getting geared up to drill the angles for the center ribs. Last night I set up the table to help me position the angles properly on the ribs. Oh yeah, the compressor had an "issue" this morning. the feed line coming out of the pump blew out of the compressor head. Maybe this means I should get a new one :)
September 10-15
	more work on the stiffener angles. I've been busy drilling the rivet holes and deburring said holes and edges. Another night working on that and I'll be ready to start priming the remainer of the ribs, and stiffeners. I've also picked up most of my welding supplies. torch, tanks, hoses, regulators, rod, and practice pieces should all be assembled and ready to go by the weekend.
September 16-22
	I'm washing all of those stiffener angles now to get them ready for primer. Big surprise, but I'm going at it slowly; probably less than 1 hour a night. I'm getting there, but these stiffeners are tedious lil' buggers On the tool front: I finally got all set up with a meco midget torch. So, after I clean a series of angles, I have been spending some time working on my welding. Lets just say I need more practice before I start making production pieces.
October, all of it
	The farm was at a fevered pitch for pumpkin season. The weather cooperated for the most part and certainly helped make the fall season a success. I only made it out to the garage a couple of times during the month. Mostly to prime more ribs. I did have one "episode" that involved the drill press, and a quart of primer, but we won't get into that.
November 1-9
	More priming. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've got some aileron ribs left and then all of the stiffener angles. Once I've finished that I'll work on securing them to the center ribs.




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