It's starting to look like an airplane! I did a test fit of the spars about a week ago (just before the rain started) to get an idea of how things were going to fit. Wow, what an eye opener for me. I had a real hard time getting things to square from front to rear spar. After a bunch of checking and rechecking, I found a few problems.
First, the rear spars were too tight in
the fuselage fittings. The overall width at the fitting was
oversize. So, I had to remove the plywood and resurface the end of the
spar. Next, I had to remove the “U” fitting welded in the end of the
attach fitting. The fitting had to be cut and re-welded to match the
width of the new spar thickness. Last, the holes had to be re-drilled
using the jigs I had made previously. The reworking of the spar and
re-welding of the attach fitting took about 6 hours. Oh well, it’s all
about learning.
Second thing I found out was that the wood I scarfed onto the rear spars ……. was not needed. After rechecking my measurements and drawing a pattern for the wing tip bow, It was time to re-cut the length of the spars ….. again.
This is what I need to remove for final spar length. Since I am using the wood bow wing tip instead of the fiberglass wing tip the plans didn't show the length I need or the end pattern.
Time to start assembling the wing……..
I started by fitting ribs 3 and 4 and the aileron well rib and tip rib. The idea was to start getting all the measurements checked for square.
I used trammel points to check the locations of the rib locations. The locations were marked prior to fitting the attach fittings. I transferred the lines from front to back using a square. This turned out to be a bad way of setting the measurements. I rechecked the measurements based on the center of the attach bolthole. When I used this point, I was able to get the measurements correctly placed and everything square. I think I am actually assembling my wing now. The wood at the end of the spars is a temporary piece to check the overall width from attaches fitting to attach fitting. I again used the trammel points to compare the width from the outside of the fittings to the attach brackets on the fuselage. Back when I hung the spars I had problems with fitting width. After re-working the spars and steel fittings everything seems to fit much better. Now I can make the steel compression fittings and move right along with the assembly of the wings.
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