Peter


About Peter

plbarrett.com | Certified Flight Instructor (Single & Multi-Engine, Instrument, and Advanced Ground) | Commercial Helicopter

Wings 9 (4.5 hrs)

I finished all the final drilling today.  Its quite an endeavor to place a couple hundred clecoes, final drill several hundred holes, move all the clecoes and drill those holes.  My wrists are sore from the cleco pliers.

Not much else to report.  I removed most of the clecos from the bottom skins, and I am ready to begin the leading edges.  I will need to place an order with Van’s Aircraft this week for several items to include fuel tank sealant.  20131111-190549.jpg

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Wings 8 (4.0 hrs)

Happy 238th Marine Corps Birthday Marines, and Semper Fidelis!

Today, I drilled the wing walk doublers and clecoed the top skins to the skeleton.  I had enough clecos to do the top of the left wing and half of the top on the right wing.  I called Jack Savage, and he agreed to lend me his clecos.  He’s got a ton, and I should be able to cleco all 8 skins.  Unfortunately, I forgot that I also still need 8 pesky AN426AD3-7 rivets to complete the second tie down bracket!  I guarantee Jack would have some handy, so I was fairly pissed when I remembered.

It might not seem like much got done, but that is a lot of clecos to install!20131110-202604.jpg

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I hung the bottom skins, but only did part of the clecoing.  Tomorrow was a light day in the shop.  Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day and I have off work, so I’ll make a fair amount of progress.20131110-202644.jpg


Wings 7 (2.0 hrs)

I finished one of the two tie down brackets tonight.  The picture below shows the completed tie down bracket after I installed and torqued the bolts.  Unfortunately I could not finish the other tie down bracket because I’m out of AN426 3-7 rivets.  I will have to steal some from another builder or have some sent in my next batch of items from Van’s.  It will be awhile before I’m not able to access that part of the plane so I’ve got time. 20131104-174840.jpg

Here is the other bracket waiting for rivets…20131104-174850.jpg

After the brackets were complete, I set about measuring and cutting the wing walk doublers.  I used a set of tin snips my buddy Denny got for me and then a file to make the dimensions as close to perfect as possible.  I’m a visual person and I had a pretty good idea how the doublers were installed, but since the skins are next, I started hanging the top skins to check the doubler and gain an understanding of how everything is fitting together. 20131104-174904.jpg

Here is one of the two wing walk doublers I made tonight.  All in all a good night in the shop.  On a side note, my wife Maria got her US citizenship today!!!20131104-174915.jpg