Wings...topside root skin, leading edge wrap

07/13/03 - Even after getting my lawn work finished today, I was able to spend 5-plus hours working in the shop and managed to install the fuel sight lines, rivet the topside root skin and drill & cleco the fuel scupper on the right side wing structure and then trim, tension, drill & cleco the leading edge wrap on the left side wing structure (with ANOTHER 1-1/2 hour break right in the middle of working to take M's car in for 5k service - still, it beats doing that work myself!).

Here are a few photos of today's work, starting with the root skin showing the fuel sight line installed and getting ready to drill and cleco the fuel scupper on the right side wing structure:

Scupper in place, but not riveted as it gets installed after covering and painting:

The root skin is also riveted everywhere except the next outboard rib (left open for rib rivets when covering) and at the aft edge where the TE Spar and the skin are to be epoxy-bonded later:

Right side wing swapped out to bring the left side up to the same point of construction:

Left side wing structure taped and ready for tensioning (oh yeah, the Cardinals are on TV too!):

Pulling everything tight with the tape and bar clamps:

Drilled and clecoed:

I have two areas in this wing's wrap that are not quite smooth enough to suit me and they may require a bit of fill when I get to the point of covering, we'll see.  It's possible they won't show, but if so, I will definitely fill because I want a nice smooth LE area.

Ed at Rans indicated it's not uncommon for this to occur and is sometimes just part of the process.  Stiffeners are installed along the aft side of the wrap in the next step, which hopefully will keep some of that 'oil canning' effect to a minimum.

All in all, I'm extremely satisfied with the wrap, root skin and scupper installation to this point.  I was expecting this to be a MUCH more difficult task than it has proven so far.  I expect that I will be able to finish the root skin and scupper installation on this wing in the coming week and as soon as I find out what product I'm supposed to use to bond the root skin to the TE Spar, I'll get back to that.  I have a small amount of J-B Weld I could use (manual doesn't really specify) but I'd rather be safe than sorry, so I'm shooting an email off to Ed at Rans this evening to find out for sure.

A good weekend's work under any circumstances!

More updates soon...

Last Update: 07/13/2003