Peter

About Peter

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

Wings 2 (5.0 hrs)

This entry was posted in Wings Wings - Structure on by

Rib prep is painful.  And that is my excuse for not taking pictures.  Besides, a rib before deburring, looks just like a rib after deburring!

Today I deburred all of the lightening holes, and fluted 50 of 54 ribs.  I just couldn’t flute anymore as my hand was cramping up and in a fair amount of pain.  This is by far the most dull part of build so far.  When I finish fluting, I will be ready for some final deburring of areas like the corners and small areas.  I figure that should take me no more than about 2 hours.  Then rib prep will be essentially done.

I’m pretty excited to mount this stuff up on the wing stand and start the match drilling process. Tomorrow is a federal holiday, so I have off work.  Hopefully I’ll have these babies up on the wing stand tomorrow!

Wings 1 (5.0 hrs)

This entry was posted in Wings Wings - Structure on by

Ribs.  Holy cow there are a lot of ribs!

Here are the ribs prior to unwrapping from the plastic.  The first thing I did today was mark all the ribs with a marker and then remove all the little stickers with the parts numbers on them.  They tend to leave a sticky adhesive behind that gums up the scotchbrite pads, so I usually remove that with some goo off.  I did the same today.  With this many ribs… even that took awhile. 20131012-191023.jpg

Here are all the ribs after labeling. 20131012-191031.jpg

Same ribs after all of the flanges have been straightened and deburred.  I can see how this takes awhile.  5 hours later and I still have to deburr the lightening holes!  As you can see, Squire is thrilled by deburring!20131012-191041.jpg

Wing Spars 11 (1.0 hr)

This entry was posted in Spars Wings on by

Today I finished all of the prep work on the wing spars except priming and riveting. I used my new countersink to finish countersinking the tie down brackets.  I deburred the spars themselves, scotchbrited the remaining parts, and dimpled part of the spar that is hard to dimple after the reinforcement fork is installed.  Priming is somewhat time consuming, and I want to do the biggest batches possible to save time.  That being the case, I set the parts for the spars aside, and began work on the wing ribs.  I’m only going to prime when I absolutely cannot continue work until I do.

On the left you can see my new #40 countersink compared to my #30 countersink.  The #40’s that broke were of the same style as the #30 shown here.  You can see why its weaker.  I’m not sure what the advantage may be to the style on the right, but I prefer the new stronger countersink.  It seems less prone to chatter too. 20131012-190853.jpg

Here is Squire with all of the spars behind him. 20131012-190903.jpg