1.0 Hours -
A local RV-9 builder came over this evening and picked up my wing stands. I’m happy that someone else will be able to use them, but I’m even happier to have freed up 16 sq. ft. of floor space in the garage!
As for work on the plane, I continued prepping the flap braces and aileron gap seals. I deburred the edges of the aileron gap seals using my Scotchbrite wheel and some strips of emery cloth. While working on the Scotchbrite wheel, a couple of large strips on Scotchbrite came flying off. At the price of these wheels, it’s almost painful to see that much fly off, but at least there is plenty left.
These two chunks came off my Scotchbrite wheel while I was deburring the aileron gap seals.
You can see where the chunks came off. Good thing there is still a lot of Scotchbrite left!
Once the edges were deburred, I dimpled the #40 holes that attach the gap seals to the skins. I also dimpled the corresponding holes in the top wing skins.
Next, I started working on the flap braces again. The flap braces attach to the aft spar and to the bottom, inboard wing skin. The flap hinge also attaches at the same flap brace/skin holes. Because of this, the bottom skin gets dimpled, the flap brace gets countersunk, and the flap hinge is only drilled. If you don’t think about this ahead of time, you’ll end up dimpling the flap brace and then having to fix it by flattening the dimples and countersinking or by dimpling the flap hinge. I probably would have missed this as well, but I happened to have read about this problem on a couple other builders’ websites.
Since the flap brace material is thin, I knew that I needed something to guide the countersink pilot. With this in mind, I drilled and clecoed the flap brace to a piece of scrap 2″ x 4″. The holes in the wood will serve as guides for the countersink cutter. I setup my electric drill with a #40 countersink cutter and made one countersink in the flap brace. Using a rivet, I check that the countersink was the proper depth and then decided to call it a night…it’s cold in the garage!
I drilled and clecoed the flap brace to a 2" x 4". The wood will serve as a guide for the countersink cutter.
Gotta love it when a plan works.
