Wing Construction

June 30-July 9
	I'm back from vacation. I needed to get back to work to get a rest :) I tried to make time for the plane. Most days I was successful; if only for small blocks of time. The rest of the week was taken up with haying, making a corn maze, and rebuilding my dirt bike. Out of the whole week my most productive day visually was yesterday. I finished fluting and seaming the flanges on the nose ribs, and I started cutting out the lightening holes. I'm hopeful that I'll finish cutting those holes tonight.
July 10
	Here is the setup I am using to cut the holes in my ribs. The same template that I used to cut the ribs is used to hold the ribs in place while I cut the hole.
	A video of the cutting process. Not terribly exiting stuff, but here it is.(1.8 meg)
	A picture of one rib after getting it's first hole
	I know I'm showing my age here, but remember the game tiddly winks?
	And here they are 46 nose ribs with their first lightening hole cut. I still need to flange the hole. I've decided to use "Bob" sticks. The making of the sticks might just be a story unto itself.
July 10
	In the Bearhawk Book there is a reprint of the winter 1995 Bear-Tracks Newsletter. In this newsletter there are drawings for "Bob sticks". Bobsticks are a tool that Bob Barrows used to flange his lightening holes. It is suggested that the stick be made out of a hardwood. It further stipulates that Ash is a good choice. Well, it just so happens that I have a large ash tree in my back yard. You can see where this is going already can't you?
	Just taking a branch off of this tree wouldn't work terribly well. The wood would be green, it could warp, and the Mrs. wouldn't be happy that I was lopping off branches to make a tool. Luckily, there are a number of dead branches on this tree that could stand to be pruned off without much notice being taken. With that, I present you with. .. a branch.
	I surely couldn't work with such large branch, so I cut off a one foot section. I dare say that it's a fine piece of ash. Sorry, I couldn't help myself ;)
	And here is where it ended up for the night. A 1x1x12 block of ash.
July 11-12
	Well, I've met with limited success. The bob-stick and me aren't getting along too well. I make it one maybe two times around a hole and I split the stick. So far I've made 4 different sticks. I've split all of them. The other problem I have is getting the metal to form a 30 deg flange as required. It's close, but I can't seem to get that extra couple of degrees that would get me to my mark. When I do exert the extra muscle to get the flange where I need it - split-. I'm going to write an email to the bearhawk group to see if they can guide me on my way. Two nights it two too many to spend flanging 46 holes.
July 12-17
	I've spent the last few days tinkering with different versions of the bob-stick. I'm still not terribly happy with the results. I tried putting a machine screw through the stick to offer additional support against splitting. And while the stick didn't split the notch in the tool widened up quickly. One of the suggestions was to use Delrin. I'm going to give that a go. If it fails to impress, I will make up some flanging dies and press the flange. To all of those that offered ideas and possible solutions, thank you.
July 18-20
	This week was tedious. It seemed that I was spending more time futzing around with pieces and parts to do the job than I was actually doing the job.
	First there was the Ash bob-stick. I put a machine screw and wing nut through the stick hoping to keep it from splitting. Well, it didn't split, but the slot got hogged out in short order.
	Next up was the Oak bob-stick. I faired a bit better with this tool, but still the hole got sloppy very quickly.
	In what would become my final attempt at bob-sticking, I followed the suggestion of some fellow Bearhawkers, and bought a 1x10 piece of Delrin. I can't believe the difference! If I do nothing else with this website, I hope I can save one builder some time with this stage of construction. One thing of note that I did. I cut a slot in either end of the stick. One slot is at ~30 deg the other ~10. The greater angle on one side let me start the flange without having the rib edge flange in the way. The smaller angle gave me the leverage to get the flange to it's finished angle without contorting my arm quite so much. Forget about wooden bob-sticks. Builder, go thee forth and purchase thee some delrin for thine bob-stick. You won't regret it
	I also made a workstation of sorts for the flanging process. Nothing fancy, but it works. In two hours time I finished up flanging half of the nose ribs. I don't think I swore even once in that two hour period.
July 21-23
	I finished up flanging the first set of lightening holes in the nose ribs. Once I figured out how to use the bob-stick it went very smoothly. Once done with the first hole I immediately started in on cutting the second, larger lightening hole.
July 24-26
	I've got half of the second holes cut and maybe 6 of that half flanged. The heat and humidity makes working out in the garage nasty. Still I get out there for a bit each night. Hopefully the humidity will break soon. I also made another workstation and the push tool to work out the distortion that the ribs acquire while flanging the holes. I'll get pictures up tomorrow.
July 27-31
	Sorry I didn't get the pictures up as promised. I took Friday and Monday off. Nothing like a four day weekend to make some progress. Here are the pictures as promised of the new push tool workstation. It's pretty simple in construction, just some strips of oak screwed to a backer board.
	Here you can see the deformed rib on the push station. The rib gets deformed during the flanging process and must be flattened out.
	Here's the same rib after "massaging" it with the push tool. Sweet!
	Here's the obligatory picture of me flanging a lightening hole.
	I broke out the video feature of my digital camera again. The video shows the flanging process. Click on the image to the left to view the video. (3.5meg)
	Took me a couple of months, but here they are 46 nose ribs ready for the stiffener angles.



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