I then match drilled the skins using the same method as the left wing. I had my two little helpers lend me a hand during some of this work. Once drilling was done I removed the skins from the skeleton.

I then picked out the bottom skins and placed these on the bench. I started to de-vinyl the left bottom skins, however my two helpers were getting restless and wanted me to go “play armies” with them. I managed to get one skin done. I’ll finish off the rest later.

Build time 2.5 hours. Hmmm… methinks I just passed the 300 build hours milestone. Yay!

As I drilled, I marked every hole with a Sharpie to ensure I didn’t miss any. Once I had drilled all the empty holes, I stepped all the clecoes to an adjacent hole so I could match drill all the remaining holes. Eventually, I finished them all off without any dramas. I then removed the left top skins from the skeleton and placed them on one of my benches ready for deburring.

Apologies for the blurry photos. The camera on my new phone is rubbish. I’m missing my iPhone VERY MUCH! Build time 2 hours.

We then went to the two most inboard wibs that I had left until last to rivet (for ease of access) and set them in place. The left wing was completed without any dramas. When I went to the right wing, the inner most rivet seemed to clash with the wing spar rivet. I didn’t want these to rub together as I reckon it would abraid a notch out of the rivet head. Unfortunately, I didnt notice this until I had set the other four rivets on this rib. Faced with the dilemma of drilling out 4 rivets from my main spar, or trying to fix this in situ, I decided to try and fix this in situ with a micro file.

Using my tapered punch as a wedge (which Mitch has named “Spike”) I carefully spread the rib flange away from the spar and the rivet. As the surface of the tapered punch is smooth, it didn’t scratch the spar.

I then used a D microfile and put some tape over the curved side, and also placed tape over the rivet.

I then carefully filed the edge of the rib flange so that it cleared the rivet. This was tedious and awkward, but I got their eventually. Unfortunately I did scratch a bit of the main spar next to the rivet. In hindsite I probably should have put some tape on the spar next to the rivet. Nevermind, I’ll give the scratch a light rub with some Scotchbrite to make sure it is smooth and shoot some primer on it.

We then finished off setting the rivets on the inboard ribs (main spar and rear spar). Here is a shot of the left main spar rivets, followed by the rear spar rivets

With the main wing skeleton rivets doen for now, we went to work on the wing skins. I started with the wing walk doubler which had to be match drilled to the inner top skin. The doubler has to be aligned with the inboard edge of the main skin, and set back 9/16″ from the forward edge. Once I had the dbouler into positio, held it in place with some cleco clamps. I then drilled the corner holes and put a cleco in the new holes as I went.

Whilst I was working on the wing walk doubler, Mitch went to work on de-vinyling the skins.

Once the doublers had been match drilled, the aft edge had to be trimmed so that is overhangs the rear spar by about an inch. I measured this to be about 1.75″ from the rear spar rivet holes. I trimmed these with my hand cutters.

Once we had 1 set of skins ready, it was time to fix them to the wing skeleton. Placing the wing walk doubler underneath the inner top wing skin, I clecoed the inner top wing skin onto the skeleton. The out top skin and inner top skin overlap each other. The outer wing skin goes on top. When I went to grab the out top skin, I found it clashed with my wing frame.

We resolved this by getting 2 pieces of ply wood, drilling a hole in each piece, and inserting these between the outboard rivet and the wing frame angle. Naturally, I had to use some longer bolts. The ply wood pieces were small enough to fit inside the top and bottom skins. Once this issue was resolved, we continued with fixing the wing top skins to the skeletons. Here is a couple of shot with the skins fitted.

With that it was time to head off to bed. Time kinda got away from me and it was after midnight all of a sudden. Many thanks for the assistance Mitch!

As usual, I double the time spent when 2 people are working, so build time tonight = 10 hours.

I then removed the wood blocks and replaced them with some metal angle. I had to match drill a couple of the holes to allow these to be bolten on.

I used 3/16″ bolts to fix the new angle to the lintel. I’ll also use 3/16″ bolts to attach the wing skeleton to the angle (as per Van’s instructions). These are a larger diameter than the wood screws I was using previously so they should take more load.

Whilst I had the wings on the benches I thought I may as well set the main rib to rear spar rivets. It should be easier doing these on the bench rather than on the wing stands. If you haven’t already noticed this, most of these ribs only have 3 of the 4 rivets set at this point. The open hole is for the aerolon or flap fairing which is installed later. This was pretty uneventful even thought I was using the offset bit again. I double checked the rivets I could set now in the middle double plate and which holes i had to leave open for now. Here is a shot of the rivets I could set at this stage. The picture is a bit blurry unfortunately. The rivets are in a vertical line to the right of the control rod hole.

Unfortunately, I had to drill out one of these rivets as the factory head split when I set it. I must not have held the bit square enough. It was a really awkard position to get to on the bench. The result? I drilled a second hole…

I managed to get the rivet out but the hole was pretty ugly. It looked like a figure 8 on its side. I cleaned the hole up a bit to remove any sharp corners, trying hard to to make the hole any bigger. At this stage I have no idea on how to fix this. I’m thinking of just putting a bigger rivet in, but I’ll do a bit of research first. Oh well – “build on” as the saying goes.

I managed to get all the rest of the main rib to rear spar rivets done on both wings.

I then went to set the rivets on the outer ribs that I didn’t set the other day. The outer most rib isn’t rivetted to the main spar yet, but the 2 inboard of it can be. Unfortunately, I completely stuffed these up. I stopped after 5 rivets and had to drill 4 of these out. I was getting frustrated so it was time to down tools and come back another day. I put the wing skeletons back on the stand, leveled everything up, then drilled out the 4 offending rivets. I then pulled out the top wing skins and put them on my bench ready for the next build session. Soooo close to put the wing skins on for the first time.

Build time 2 hours (not including the time I spent playing with the wing stand).

First we applied a couple of layers of tape around the sides of the bucking bar. I left the face of the buckng bar bare so that it would still impact the shop heads as usual. I also applied a layer of tape on the wall of each spar bracer bar near each rivet hole. This was done to prevent the bucking bar scratching the main spar when setting the shop heads. We had to drill a couple of the rivets out where I mustn’t have held the rivet gun perfect square and ended up spreading or splitting the factory heads. Considering this work was done exclusively with the offset bit, I’m very happy with how things went. Having the second person to buck the rivets made all the difference.

Here is a shot of some of the finished rivets.

I have left the inner most main rib removed, and I have the last few outboard ribs to rivet to the spar now (where the main spar doubler plate doesn’t reach). All the rest of the main ribs are now rivetted to the main spar for both wings.

1.5 hours with 2 people = 3 build hours. Thanks for your help Mitch!

We proceeded to set the middle 3 rivets on the main ribs that connect to the main spar doubler. These require the slightly longer -7 rivets due to the extra thickness of the metal from the doubler plate. The main spar doubler doesn’t extend to the last few outer ribs so a shorter rivet is needed here. I left these outer ribs alone for now. This proceeded steadily until we got to the inboard wing walk ribs.

Due to the ribs being fairly close together I decided to remove the two inboard ribs to give me more room to get the rivet gun in there. This allowed me to set the outboard 2 wing walk ribs fairly easily. I also took the opportunity to set the rivets I couldn’t reach on the lower spar as well. Once I had all the rivets set I replaced the next inboard rib and set the rivets on the main spar end only. Due to the flap brace I didn’t set any rivets on the rear flange. I also left the inner most wing walk rib removed to allow future access. Here is a shot of how I left the wing walk ribs.

Here is a shot along the length of the left main spar showing the middle 3 rivets of the main ribs set. I need to apply tape to the main spar brace bars before I can set the upper and lower most rivets (where the clecoes are in this picture). This is so you dont scratch the main spar with the bucking bar when you set these rivets. You can also see Mitch checking out Facebook on his phone.

Here is how the wings looked when we finished up tonight. I removed the clecoes from the ribs that we set so they are ready for the remaining rivets to be set next session.

We were in the shed for 2.5 hours tonight. As there were two of us, I’m counting this as 5 build hours.

I dusted off the parts from where I left them and got back to work on riveting the outboard main ribs to the rear spars. I remembered these were being difficult and they continued to be on this occasion. I think it was a mixture of awkward positioning (i.e. lieing on the floor) and awkard location (i.e. trying the get the squeezer into position). Perserverence, several drilled out rivets, and some colourful language later, I managed to get the left wing done. I set 3 of these rivets using my squeezer but had to shoot the last one with my rivet gun as it was out of reach of the yoke. I found the rivet gun to be a bit easier and less prone to bending rivets over or not getting them sitting in the middle of the countersink. I used the rivet gun on the right wing for all 4 rivets and only had to drill out 1 of these (as opposed to about 5 on the left wing).

Apologies for the fuzzy picture but you get the general idea. These 8 rivets (4 per wing) took me 2 hours. Fiddly work but I’m glad they are done. The next rivets to be done are the main rib to forward spar. I am hoping these will be easier and faster. we’ll see how we go tomorrow!

I started by checking the plans for the rear spar rivets. There are lots of different sizes here and there are also holes that you can’t rivet yet as other stuff needs to be attached first. Consequently it was very slow going. I would recommend taking your time and double-checking every rivet you place before you set it. I concentrated on the rivets for the rear spar parts today.

I started with the rivets for the rear spar forks. I managed to use the squeezer for almost all of the rivets. I wold recommend that you set the rivets holding the ribs last. This will allow you to flex the ribs out of the way to give you room to squeeze the rivets between the ribs. If you don’t, you’ll have to buck them and I reckon some of them might need the dreaded offset bit to be able to reach (something to be avoided where possible).

I then placed the rivets in the centre double plate. I only wanted to set the rivets that aren’t being used to hold anything else (like ribs or brackets).

Next, I placed the rivets on the outboard red spar doubler plate.

I could set almost all of the rivets in these three areas using the squeezer. There were a couple of rivets that hold ribs that I couldn’t quite reach properly so I left them to buck later. I then got the next group of rivets for the inboard doubler plate on the rear spars.

Finally, I placed the flush head rivets on the outboard rear spar rib union. Surprisingly, these were a right royal pain. I must have been getting tired, hungry or complacent, but for whatever reason I wasn’t setting these square. Consequently, the flush heads weren’t sitting centred in the countersinks resulting in one side of the flush head edge to sit proud. I tired to fix these up by squeezing them some more but I just made it worse. I wasn’t happy with them so I ended up drilling these out and decided to call it a day at this point. Working frustrated = mistakes + more work.

It was great to get back into the shed again. Hopefully I can get some more done tomorrow as it’s a public holiday here.

Build time 4 hours.

I put a large drop sheet on the ground out the front of my shed and moved the horse float so that it would provide a wind break and also wouldn’t get any overspray. I then layer all the parts for one wing on the drop sheet and primed them. When they were touch-dry, I flipped them over and did the other side. I repeated the process for the other wing parts.

Nothing too difficult, it just took a while. I had to make 2 batches of paint to do everything. Once everything was primed I clecoed the rear spar parts together and went back to the instructions to double check I hand’t missed anything. I had. The outboard holes on the outboard doubler plate need to be countersunk to allow the use of flush rivets. I set my countersinking tool up and countersunk both plates.

I then clecoed everything together on the main spars. Wing skeleton ready for rivets!

Build time – 4 hrs.

Next I cleaned all the wing ribs and rear spar parts ready for priming. I use PreKote as a cleaner/surface treatment. Using some fine sand paper, you spray the PreKoate all over the part then lightly wipe it all over with some fine sandpaper. Next you rinse it off with water, then spray PreKote all over the part again and wipe it all over (either using my fingers wearing a latex glove, or with some lint-free paper cloth). Finally, one last rinse off with water then put the part aside to dry. From this point onwards, I never touch the parts with bad hands and always wear latex gloves when handling the cleaned parts.

I had enough PreKote to clean all the main ribs and rear spar parts for both wings. I managed to get the the nice ribs cleaned for the right wing but the left wing nose ribs are yet to be cleaned. Cleaning all these ribs took AGES. It was repetitive and boring but the iPod made it bearable. Here is a shot of all the cleaned parts (and the stack of nose ribs yet to be done).

I also had a very good turn of luck during the week. Another builder from Perth named Alex was very generous and dropped off some 2-part primer that he wasn’t going to use before it’s expiry date. This was great timing as I was wondering if I had enough primer to paint all of the wing skeleton. Many thanks Alex. You’re a champion!

Build time today – 5.5 hrs.