1.5 Hours -
Both wings are now cleco free! So what if the bottom sides haven’t been skinned and there are no control surfaces…the point is that there are absolutely no clecoes in either wing at the moment!
As with the right wing, I squeezed all of the rivets on the trailing edge that connect the top skins to the rear spar. Yes, here’s another picture of the top side of the wing that looks just like a bunch of other pictures I’ve posted previously.
After riveting the aft row of rivets, the left top skins are done.
After finishing with the rivets, I worked on pulling some more conduit through the right wing. I’m about halfway through…starting on the inboard end was a dumb idea. The ribs are so close together that it is hard to reach in and I can only pull about an inch of conduit at a time. I’ll use a new strategy on the left wing, but I’m too far along on the right to pull the conduit out and start over.
In between conduit pulling sessions, I started marking some boards for making cradle. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel on this one and just build the cradle Van’s has in the plans.
A Google SketchUp rendering of the Van's style wing cradle. The left side will have cut-outs the shape of the leading edge so that the wing can sit in the stand with the leading edge pointed toward the floor. I'll also add castoring wheels. **Ignore the length dimension at the bottom...it's just a random length I picked while making the drawing. The actual length is closer to 8 feet for the RV-7.**
