Sunday July 6, 2008
Flaps Finished (Flaps)
9.4 Hours

Today was a very long day in the shop, but also very successful...

I began by dimpling all of the flap skins. Standard stuff: some I squeezed and some I dimpled with the C-frame. In a few places, I had to use the vice grip dimple tool.

The end ribs, I drilled for nutplates (one per flap) that eventually connect to a bearing that connects to the flap actuator system.

The plans call for a simple V-shaped jig to hold the flap during riveting. Here, I've just used my jigsaw to cut the V-shape in some 2x8's. Then I used some sand paper to get them smooth and somewhat the same shape.

I decided to simply screw them into my work bench--it seemed like the simplest way.

At this point, I worked on each flap individually. I finished the right flap first.

Next, I riveted the very front hole of all of the interior ribs to the bottom skin. A few days ago, when I match drilled those holes, I did a really crappy job on the right flap. I wasn't careful to get things lined up just right. I had to elongate some of the holes to get the bottom flanges of the interior ribs to sit flush with the skin.

Then, I clecoed the entire flap together and set it in the jig. With the spar removed, I solo shot/bucked the line of rivets that joins the two skins.

Then, I riveted the interior ribs...

...on both sides.

Sorry for the blurry photo. I riveted this plate to the inboard end rib.

Here's the spar and inboard end rib riveted in place.

And here's the finished right flap after riveting the spanwise rows of rivets that connect the skins to the spar.

Yay, the top of the right flap.

Fast forward several hours and here's the left flap finished.

I've been thinking lately that I need to have a Tech Counselor visit to validate all of the wing work I've done. It would go a long way toward some piece of mind about my work (not to mention making sure I'm doing good work). I met the local guy at an EAA meeting in December and he gave me his card. I need to dig it up and make the call!

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