2.7 Hours -
After lunch, I recruited my girlfriend, Amber, to help me move the wings from the stands to the cradle. I removed all of the clamps, bolts, etc, that held the left wing to it’s stand. Then, I moved the cradle closer to the wing and had Amber position herself on the outboard end. We lifted the wing off the stand, took a step towards the cradle, flipped the wing over, and gently lowered it into the cradle. The cradle fit the left wing perfectly! Could I be so lucky for the right wing?
With the left wing in the cradle, I moved the stands out of the way and nudged the cradle closer to the right wing. The right wing was a bit more awkward because we had to lift it over the stands. However, we got it into the cradle, and the fit was, once again, as good as I could have hoped for!
Next, I placed two 3/8” bolts through the wing/fuselage attach holes at the inboard end of each main spar. Before inserting the bolts, I wrapped their threads with some duct tape so that the threads didn’t damage the spar. The bolts will prevent the inboard end of the spar from sliding off the cradle. I had seen this trick on several build sites, so I’m not sure who to give credit to.
Now that both wings were in the cradle, I was able to rearrange the garage a bit. Wow, so much more room with the wing in a rolling cradle and the original stands tucked into a corner!
With my girlfriend's help, we wrangled the wings into the cradle and they fit perfectly!
The inboard end of the wings/cradle.
The outboard end of the wings/cradle.
I placed duct tape over the threads of some 3/8 bolts and slid two of them through each spar to block the wings from sliding off the cradle.
Back to construction…
Since I had previously assembled the aileron brackets, all I had to do was final/match drill them to the aft spar and rivet them on. It sounds simple, but it took a lot of time. Three of the four brackets didn’t fit well and needed modification. The top edge of the brackets didn’t fit the curve of the aft spar, causing the brackets to not sit flush on the spar. To fix this, I used my Scotchbrite wheel to taper the upper sides of the brackets. Curving the edge of the brackets was all it took to get them to fit the aft spar correctly. Now I could cleco them in place and drill all of the holes.
After deburring all of the holes, I started to rivet. I was hoping my squeezer would work on these, but it seems to struggle with longer 4- rivets. So, I set up my rivet gun and started shooting. I had a couple rivets bend over on me, so there was some drilling out and re-riveting that had to be done, but, overall, this riveting session went well.
Each bracket has one rivet that is a flush rivet, so pay careful attention to the plans. For some reason, my squeezer didn’t have any problem with these, so I was able to quickly set the four flush rivets.
An inboard aileron bracket. The bottom outboard rivet is flush.
Another view of an inboard aileron bracket. Note the single flush rivet.
An outboard aileron bracket. The inboard bottom rivet is flush on this one.
The outboard side of the outboard aileron bracket.
Finally, I pulled out the flap braces (W-721 L & R) and started work on those. The braces have a small section that needs to be removed from the inboard end. As usual, Van’s put a couple of notches in the pieces for use as cut guides. Connect the notches with a line and cut on the line…simple.
The flap braces have a small section that has to be tapered. As usual, Van's provides some notches as a cutting guide.
Once I cut the flap braces, I clamped them to the wings for a test fit. Looks good and I’m calling it a night!
Test fitting the flap braces.
The inboard end of one of the flap braces.
