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Right wing top side covered... 11/16/03 - I wasn't planning to work in the shop today, but this morning, I had a phone conversation with the Airboard Manager at Henderson City-County Airport (EHR) whom I had spoken with earlier this summer about locating there if a hangar was to become available and today was the day! I'll start a yearly lease (with option to buy) on a two year old tee hangar on December 1! I'm waiting to receive the lease docs via email, but after a couple of extended telephone conversations today, I don't anticipate any hangups. Henderson has a very nice 5500' asphalt runway and is a relatively low-traffic operation with no terrible obstructions on either runway which is great for a new experimental running phase one operations. So, after finding out my lease will start pretty soon, I decided to get back to work! I was able to complete covering the topside of the right wing today. This leaves a few more processes (rib riveting, inspection points, edge tapes, etc.) to complete before the fabric work on right wing is finished. Marilyn lent a hand today to help snap a chalk line to indicate the overlap of the top sheet on the bottom side. (M says it was actually two chalk lines she helped with, not one, and it's true!) The (first) chalk line is visible about three inches from the leading edge in the photo:
The next two shots show anti-chafe tapes applied over rivet heads. This isn't called for in the build manual, but according to the EAA Fabric video and other documentation I have, it doesn't hurt either.
Here, I have the top sheet loosely placed with spring clamps holding the leading edge location. When applying the adhesive to the leading edge side, I also used a few spring clamps just hanging on the trailing edge side to provide a bit more tension for the fabric.
After securing the leading edge
side, I flipped the wing and ran adhesive along the trailing edge side to
a point past where my chalk line was in order to provide a clean cutting
edge. In the next photo I am trimming the trailing edge side back to
After trimming and rotated upright again, now ready to begin work on the tip end:
A note to builders about the wing stands. The tip end is held to the wing by a 1/4" 'spike' which goes through the tip bow and the wing rotates about the spike. To this point, I have kept a pair of needle nose vise-grip pliers clamped to the tip end of this rotation stub so I wouldn't lose the wing off the stand, but now it has to come off so I can close out the tip. A word of advice...before I put the vise-grips on the stub, I ALMOST lost the wing off that end when I first received the stands. If you are using these or similar stands, either use something to keep the spike from coming loose while flipping the wing or pay strict attention to this end EACH TIME you rotate the wing. 'nuff said. Here's a few shots of the top side tip-end after I secured the fabric and did a 'pre-shrink' to help form the fabric around the curve, starting with the top view, then bottom view before and after trimming and finally the tip end from the top again after trimming and a pre-shrink around the tip edges:
Here, getting ready to finish the root end:
Working the fabric under the rib:
The right wing with top fabric sheet in place and a light shrink applied:
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not finished with the wing but well on the way and I can now honestly state that I ENJOY this part of the covering process. I had to fight my own inexperience in the beginning, but after a few pieces, the process seems to sort of work itself out as I go along and to finish with something that actually looks great is the reward for the job! More updates soon... |
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Last Update: 11/16/2003 |
