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Wings and things... 05/08 - 05/10/03 - Well, I didn't have the greatest weather today for my scheduled Warbirds Dream Flight as we were getting winds at EHR 20021G26 on a 9/27 runway, and today's scrub makes three. I'm on the schedule again for next Saturday, through! After getting back home and a bit of hardware shopping at Lowe's, I settled down to a few hours of serious wing building! Everything went pretty smoothly today after a conversation I had with Ed at Rans regarding installation on spar bushings I was fighting a couple of days ago. I laid out left and right sets of fore and aft spars on stands and proceeded to work both sets at the same time and today was able to bring the task up to installing the flap and aileron hinges on the aft side of the rear spar. According to Ed, the most efficient method is to construct both sets concurrently. Following are a few photos from Thursday when I got a bare start (before being stopped by the bushing problem) and continuing through today's work. I was reading some docs on building a kit and noticed a mention that the builder should appear in photos to (help) prove having an actual hand in the job...I'm telling you, after this project is finished and the inspector doesn't believe I did all the work on this kit, I may have to strangle him! I persuaded Marilyn to shoot me Thursday evening drilling the forward spars, just so everyone knows I am actually working on this and not just keeping up a website...sheesh! ;^) Here's the BUILDER hard at work punching holes in a perfectly good piece of 3" Tubing:
Anyway...today, I used Ed's advice on fitting the 3/8" bushings into the spars at the strut attach plate and of course it worked just like he said it would! (debur, debur, debur, use a 1/4" rod through bushing and tap it into place with a very small hammer):
Bushings in place:
Strut plate and long wing channel in place:
Marking WHAT I am working on helps keep me from putting these things together backwards:
Putting the wing hinges together:
The wing hinges are installed into the inboard end of the rear spar:
Strut attach plates (and more bushings!) are installed on rear spars also:
Flap and aileron hinges loosely attached to the aft side of the rear spars:
The hinges use riveted nutplates, so my task next trip out will be to drill and install the nutplates. I may or may not get to work tomorrow as Alyssa is visiting and she and I may just take a road trip to visit the REAL Grandpa Wilkerson. Below is my Dad and Stepmom Lois shown with Alyssa about two weeks after her REAL BIRTHDAY!
I suppose I'm a real Grandpa Wilkerson too, but my Dad has a few more years experience at this grandpa thing than me, so I call him the REAL Grandpa! More updates soon... |
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Last Update: 05/11/2003 |
