Sunday October 26, 2008
Pushrods, Finished Left Wing Top Skin Riveting, Demolished Wing Jig (Wings)
5.0 Hours

This morning, I finished drilling the rod ends to the short pushrods and riveted them in place. You use a pair of long rivets that stick all of the way through the pushrod to the other side. Interesting, but easy.

I primed the ends of the rods (not the rod ends, though), cause there were a few blemishes in the powder coating.

Then, I spent a little while clecoing the bottom skins in place on the right wing to get them out of the way. Things didn't want to line up just right for me. It seems like the rear spar holes to main spar holes distance is greater than it should be by about 1/16". Oh well.

Later, Emily devoted a bunch of her afternoon to finish riveting the top skin on the left wing. We got it all done!

Then, I squeezed the rivets on the inboard-most rib and along the rear spar.

Then, I detached the fuel tank (which I'm declaring to be leak free at this point, by the way--yay!) from the wing so I could shim up the leading edge a little in one spot to fix some pillowing. Here it is in the cradle for the last time (hopefully).

Here's the shim...whee...

After I got the fuel tank bolted/screwed back to the wing, Emily helped me lift it out of the jig and into the cradle. Two wings in the cradle...

After I got back from the gym, I demolished the wing jig and rolled the wing cradle over to where it had been.

This is a real milestone for the project!

I do still have the aileron hinge brackets, aileron gap fairing, flap brace, and conduit to install on the left wing, but the wings are getting pretty close to "done" (for now). At some point, I will also need to do the following: install the aileron bellcranks and rig the ailerons, install the flap hinges, install a pitot tube in the left wing, possibly install an autopilot servo in one of the wings, rivet the bottom skins, and install the wing tips. My motivation for leaving those things for later is to be able to push off the pitot tube and autopilot decisions until much later.

Look at that...this entry pushed me over 500 hours on the project. Woohoo!

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