4.7 Hours -
My Dad came over to help work on the plane today, and we pretty much got in a full day of work. I also passed the two hundred hour mark on the build, but it will take a few more days just to finish prepping the ribs.
Early this morning,I took the two piles of ribs I had on the floor and sorted them on my bench by part number. For the main ribs (not including fuel tank or leading edge ribs), there are 4 different models. Essentially, it is two types of ribs with left and right models of each. In this case, however, left and right don’t refer to which wing they are for, but, rather, which direction the flanges face when attached to the spar. On each wing, there will be ribs that face both directions.
Once my Dad arrived, we started by marking the part number on each rib using a Sharpie. Once this was done, we removed the labels Van’s uses to mark part numbers and used some acetone to clear away the sticky residue left by the labels.
First step was to mark all the ribs with their part number and then clean off the tags Van's uses to label them.
Next, the “fun stuff” started. I had my Dad straighten the flanges of the ribs while I worked on deburring the flange edges using the Scotchbrite wheel on my drill press. We continued doing this for about 3 hours. At that point, my Dad had all the flanges straightened and I had about 3/4 of the ribs deburred.
It’s difficult to understand how fluting straightens the ribs, and my Dad was curious to see it, so I gave him a quick demo on how to flute a rib and then let him flute one while I talked him through the process. After fluting a couple of ribs, we left the garage to go grab some lunch.
Later in the afternoon, I returned to the garage for another 1.5 hours. Wanting to do something different, I pulled out my die grinder and 2” Scotchbrite and started to deburr the lightening holes on some of the ribs. To break up the monotony, I would deburr the lightening holes on one rib, then flute the rib. I made it through 5 or 6 ribs before deciding to quit for the day.
At the end of the day, I still have a few main ribs that need deburring and a bunch that need fluting. The fuel tank and leading edge ribs haven’t even been touched yet. My plan is to attach a couple of ribs each night until they are finished. With luck I’ll be done with them next weekend.
From left to right: Fuel tank/leading edge ribs that are still untouched (first two stacks); ribs that need to be fluted, ribs that are done, ribs that still need to have the edges deburred.
The ribs on the right are deburred and fluted. They stack much more nicely than the ribs that have not been fluted.
