Archive for category Wings
Deburred Landing Light Parts (10/25/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Leading Edges, Wings on October 25, 2011
0.8 Hours -
Not much to report today. I spent just under an hour deburring landing light components. I still need to do some touch-up work with a smaller Scotchbrite wheel, but the lights are basically ready for assembly. I now also think I’m going to keep the parts bare metal. Most likely, I’ll just prime the lens retainer brackets since they are not alclad.
I also received a letter from the factory today stating that my fuselage kit is scheduled to ship the week of Nov. 28. That should give me enough time to wrap up the wings and get the garage organized.
Left Landing/Taxi Light Started (10/23/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Leading Edges, Main Structure, Wings on October 23, 2011
3.2 Hours -
Today, I wanted to start riveting the outboard bottom skins on the wings, but I didn’t get very far. I rigged some rope to the ceiling and the outboard end of the skin, allowing me to lift the skin for riveting access, but I still couldn’t reach the first few rivets. Because of the orientation of the rib flange where the two skins overlap, it is a difficult stretch to get to the first few rivets along the aft spar. If the wing were lower (maybe even on the floor), I could probably reach by laying on it. However, I decided the best option will be to move the wing back to the cradle for at least the first bit of riveting since I know I can reach the aft spar through the access hole. Depending on how it goes, I may or may not move it back to the table to finish.
Using a piece of rope, I lifted the outboard end of the wing skin to allow access for riveting.
Another view of the lifted wing skin. No matter what I tried, I couldn't reach the first few rivets. However, I should be able to reach them if the wing is back in the cradle.
Since the wing was already on the table, I decided to start working on the leading edge landing/taxi light. I originally planned on using the Van’s wingtip landing lights, but I had to change this plan once I decided to make my own nav/strobe lights. Because of this change, I decided to go with the Duckworks leading edge lights. The 55W rectangular original light to be specific.
The Duckworks lights are auto headlights that have been modified a bit and bundled with a mounting kit specific to RVs. Duckworks also provides all installation hardware, some nice instructions (with pictures), and CAD templates. The lights will be positioned in the outboard bay of the wing’s leading edge, with one light in each wing.
The first step for installing the light is to mark the location of the hole that will be made in the leading edge of the wing. A CAD template is provided along with measurements for positioning the template. Once positioned, you just trace the cutout onto the wing.
A template is taped to the leading edge in order to trace the landing light cutout.
The landing light hole is marked. I sure hope I have the positioning correct before puncturing my beautiful leading edge!
After checking the positioning of the cutout multiple times, I mustered the courage to start cutting a hole in my pristine leading edge. I drilled a few pilot holes, then went at the corners with a large unibit. Finally, I used a Dremel with a cutoff wheel to finish the cut.
No turning back now...I started cutting the hole with a unibit in the corners.
The hole was finished using a cutoff disk in my Dremel. The initial cut is pretty rough.
The initial cut was pretty rough around the edges, so I used a combination of tools to finish it. A 2″ Scotchbrite wheel in a die grinder, maroon and gray Scotchbrite pads, some emery cloth, and 30 minutes of time, left me with a great looking cutout in the leading edge. I don’t think this could have turned out any better than it did…what a relief!
A combination of tools were used to finish the hole. After about 30 minutes of finishing, I was very happy with the result.
With the big hole finished. The next step is to drill the screw holes for the lens retainer brackets. Both the leading edge template and the brackets are used to position these holes. Only the screw holes are drilled into the leading edge, and they are left at #40 for now. Eventually, they will be enlarged for #6 screws.
The retainer clips and leading edge template are used as guides for drilling the lens screw holes. These are left at #40 for now.
Next, two nutplates have to be installed in each of the two outboard leading edge ribs. Duckworks provides another template for marking the locations of the nutplates in the ribs. Once the locations are marked, it’s a simple matter of drilling and installing the nutplates with pop-rivets.
Another template is provided to mark the location of two nutplates in each of the two outboard leading edge ribs.
Nutplate holes drilled (identical holes on the next inboard rib too).
The nutplates are installed on the outside of the bay using pop-rivets.
After installing the nutplates, the light retainer bracket is fitted. The bracket comes as two pieces that have to be riveted together. For the RV-7 the full lengths of the brackets are needed, but they are shortened for some of the other models. Even though I would not have to cut the brackets, I temporarily installed them just to check the fit.
The light retainer bracket is in two pieces which have to be fit and then drilled/riveted together.
Once the fit of the brackets was confirmed, I marked out a rivet line and drilled the brackets. At this time, I went ahead and drilled the brackets for both wings since they should both be the same size. The directions weren’t very clear on what type of rivets to use, and only 3- rivets are included in the kit, but I decided to use 4- rivets instead. I haven’t decided if I will use flush or universal head rivets, but I almost think that universal heads will give a neat look to the brackets. Also, I think I will paint the brackets white rather than leaving them as bare aluminum.
The main light brackets drilled and clecoed. I haven't decided yet, but I think I'm going to paint these white.
Finally, I pulled out one of the plexi lenses and positioned it over the cutout in the wing. Using the cutout as a guide, I roughly marked where the lens will need to be cut. The directions recommend leaving 3/4″ of material beyond the cutout on the top and bottom, and 5/8″ on the sides. I’ll make the rough cut on these with a band saw, but, at this point, I decided to call it a night.
The landing light lens has to be trimmed to size. Here, I've marked it for the initial cut using the hole in the leading edge as a guide.
Preparing to Rivet Last Bottom Skins (10/22/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Main Structure, Wings on October 22, 2011
1.8 Hours -
When I went into the garage, my intent was just to do some rearranging/cleaning, but, as soon as I saw the wing access covers sitting on my bench, I decided I would take some time to install the corresponding nutplates on the wing skins. Each access cover is screwed onto the wing using four #6 screws along the main spar and eight #8 screws into the skin. The #6 nutplates were already installed, and all the prep for the #8s was complete, so all I had to do was rivet 48-#8 nutplates to the wing skins using 96 NAS1097AD3-3 “oops” rivets. All of these could be squeezed, so it was a fairly simple task.
Once all of the nutplates were installed, I started disassembling the left wing so that it could be moved from the cradle to a workbench. Before moving the wing, both the flap and aileron had to be removed. This is a simple task, but keeping track of all the washers and spacers can be challenging.
After removing the flap and aileron, I spent a few minutes rearranging the garage a bit. The wing cradle had to be turned and moved near the garage door in order to open up some space in the middle of the garage. Then, I moved one of my workbenches to the space in the middle where the cradle was previously. Normally, space wouldn’t be an issue, but I had just finished a flooring project in the house, and we now have several rolls of old carpet taking up a lot of space in the garage. Our bulk garbage pickup day isn’t until December….hopefully it happens before my fuselage kit arrives!
With a table now in the center of the garage, I recruited Amber to help me move the left wing onto the table. The wing is now sitting with the bottom side facing up, and it seems fairly stable on the table. However, I may further secure it, prior to riveting, using a length of rope or a couple ratcheting tie-down straps. My plan is to use a piece of rope and a pulley to lift the outboard end of the skin for riveting access. By having the wing on the table, I think I will have better access than when it is in the cradle, but I’m still not convinced. While each wing is on the table, I’ll also take some time to install the Duckwork’s leading edge landing/taxi lights.
After rearranging the garage, I moved the left wing onto a workbench with the bottom side facing up. In the bottom right of the picture, you can see some of the old carpet that is currently talking up half the garage.
Another view of the left wing on the table. Some rope tied to the ceiling will help lift the bottom skin for riveting access.
Wing Access Covers Finished (10/20/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Main Structure, Wings on October 20, 2011
1.6 Hours -
I’m still trying to wrap up a few small tasks on the wings. While these things need to get done at some point, I think I’m really just trying to delay riveting the last bottom skins as long as possible!
This evening, I started by finishing the pitot mast fix. I decided to go with -4 rivets in a few spots instead of NAS1097, so I had to re-dimple and countersink a few spots on the skin, forward spar, and pitot mast. Pretty simple stuff.
Next, I decided to pull out the W-822 wing access covers that had been sitting under my workbench, gathering dust, since the day I received the wing kit.
The W-822 wing access covers (3 per wing) need to be drilled, deburred, and dimpled.
Finishing these was a quick and easy project since all that needs to be done is to enlarge the holes to the correct size for screws, deburr, and dimple. The only catch is that there are, for some reason, two sizes of screws used. Along the forward spar, #6 screws are used to attach the covers. However, #8 screws are used around the periphery of the covers to attach them to the wing skin. I don’t know why #6 screws couldn’t be used all the way around, and I would think that you would want the bigger #8 screws in the spar, but I’m no engineer, so I’ll just follow the plans!
#6 screws are used along the spar (top on this picture), and #8 screws are used around the periphery...don't ask my why two sizes of screws are used.
Once all the holes were drilled to size, I deburred and dimpled the covers. Unfortunately, I couldn’t install any of them on the wings yet because I’ve yet to install the corresponding platenuts on the wing skins. I had left them out because I didn’t want them scratching my arms while reaching through the access holes to rivet the wing skins. I guess the covers will go back under the work bench and gather dust for a while longer.
A finished W-822.
The six covers nest together nicely after all the dimpling is done. The camera made the edges look a little wavy, but they aren't.
LED Drivers For Nav Lights Installed (10/18/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Wings, Wingtips on October 18, 2011
1.3 Hours -
Cooler temperatures, combined with getting a few home improvement projects out-of-the-way, allowed me to finally get back to airplane building tonight! There are a few final touches on the wings that I wanted to work on before riveting the last bottom skins on. Plus, I’ve got some extra motivation to finish the wings now that my fuselage kit will be arriving in just a couple of months.
The first thing I wanted to work on was to install the LED drivers/filters on the outboard wing ribs. Previously, I had made a drill template using Google Sketch-up, and transferred the paper template to a piece of aluminum sheet to provide some rigidity to the guide. After some indecision about where exactly to install the drivers, I settled on the bottom, aft area of the outboard leading edge ribs. With the drill guide in place, I started drilling the four holes that will be used to install the drivers with four #4 screws and lock washers. As it turns out, I can still easily access the driver screws even after the last bottom skin is riveted. I may go back and add some Loctite to these screws, but at least I know I can inspect the screws anytime the wingtips are off.
Google Sketch-up made it easy to make a paper drill template. I transferred this to aluminum to give me a more rigid platform.
I used my drill guide to install the LED driver in the lower, aft corner of the outboard leading edge rib.
The driver is installed on the rib using four #4 screws and lock washers.
A closer view of the installed driver. One power wire will come into the driver, and two wires (power and ground) will go to the nav LEDs in the wingtip.
Next, I wanted to make a small adjustment to my pitot mast installation. When I originally installed the mast, it ended up just slightly askew. This was so slight, that it probably wouldn’t amount to much error, but I wasn’t happy about it. To fix this, I just realigned the bad side of the mast and enlarged some of the holes to #30 in order to account for the shift. During final installation, I can either use 4- rivets or NAS1097 “oops” rivets. Most likely, I’ll go with the 4- rivets since these will be on the bottom of the wing where no one will ever see the different head size.
Since I had to remove the right wingtip prior to installation of the LED driver, I decided this would be a good time to install the nav/strobe assembly and lens in the tip. This only involved 8 screws, so it didn’t take long, but it was nice to see the wingtip complete. My homemade nav/strobes may not have saved me much money over buying some pre-made ones, but I greatly prefer the look of mine!
The right wingtip with the nav/strobe assembly and lens installed. I don't know what the black dots are a reflection of, but they don't exist on the actual lens.
Another view of the fully assembled right wingtip.
Left Nav/Strobe Installed In Tip (8/20/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Wings, Wingtips on August 20, 2011
0.5 Hours -
Due to the continued South Texas heat, I’ve been avoiding the garage like the plague. However, this morning, at 7:30, it was cool enough to do some non-noisy work where there was no risk of waking the neighbors.
Since I had tools scattered all over, my plan mainly involved garage clean-up. After getting everything put away, I decided to install the left nav/strobe assembly on the wingtip because I really wanted to see what the final product looked like. This should have only been a matter of installing 6 screws, but it’s never that easy. As soon as I fit the light assembly on the tip, I could tell that there was some interference with the cutouts in the tip. The main problem was with the heat sink, which wasn’t surprising since I had never done a final test fit after the heat sinks were installed. To get the assembly to fit, I just had to remove a bit more fiberglass in order to allow clearance of the sink. A file and my Dremel made quick work of this task, and I don’t think I made too much noise either.
Once the tip cutouts were adjusted, I slipped the light assembly into place and installed the six screws that attach the assembly to the tip. Once attached, everything looked good except for a slight bowing of the mirrored plexi on the strobe side of the assembly. The strobe and plexi are both attached to the aluminum plate with two screws, but there is nothing holding the corners firm. I prefer the look of fewer screws, so I’m going to live with it as is.
Happy with the fit, I removed the protective paper from the mirrored plexi and installed the wingtip lens. I purchased some #6 countersunk washers to use on the wingtip lens. They aren’t necessary, but I think they make the finish look much nicer. Needless to say, I’m pretty proud of my homemade nav/strobe lights!
The left nav/strobe assembly installed in the tip along with the lens. Not bad for homemade!
Another view of the finished left wingtip light assembly.
Right Wingtip Finished (8/7/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Wings, Wingtips on August 7, 2011
1.8 Hours -
I wanted to finish up the right wingtip, so I hit the garage early. All that I had left to do was to rivet the W-412 rib, platenuts, and reinforcement strips to the wingtip. Once the riveting was finished, I deburred and dimpled the holes in the wing skin. Then, I was able to attach the right wingtip to the wing with screws, and the fit was great. Of course, everything couldn’t go smoothly. Before taking pictures, I started to clean up and managed to spilled a bin of AN426AD3-4 rivets on the floor…getting down on your hands and knees to search for and pick up rivets sure is fun!
Just when you think it is quitting time....
The right tip is screwed on!
A close-up of the tip installed on the right wing.
The wings are wide. To give you an idea of the size of the wing, I'm 6'2" tall...the wing sits about 4 inches off the ground and comes up to my eye level.
Right Wingtip Prep Continued (8/6/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Wings, Wingtips on August 6, 2011
3.5 Hours -
This is the reason I haven't been working on the plane much. Today feels a bit cooler than the last few days, but this is the temperature in the garage with a fan blowing directly on me.
The picture says it all. It’s hot in the garage, and today is a little cooler than the last few days. So, you can probably understand why I haven’t been working on the plane as much lately. I must have a fan blowing directly on me if I want to spend any time in the garage, and, even then, I constantly have to wipe sweat off me and the parts. However, I did manage to spend over three hours working on the right wingtip today.
I had already drilled the right tip to the wing, but I wasn’t happy with the a small gap in the leading edge area. I tried to adjust the tip and re-drill, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t eliminate the gap. I’ll have to wait until the tip is installed with screws to decide if the gap is acceptable or if I’ll have to do some repairs. A little epoxy and flox should do the trick if needed.
Next, I cut the reinforcement strips and match drilled those to the tip. On the right tip, I decided to only make one strip per side and I’m not going to epoxy them into place. This is in contrast to the left tip where I cut several small strips for each side and epoxied them into place before drilling the tip. Once the strips were drilled to the tip, I clecoed on platenuts and drilled the platenut rivet holes through both the tip and the reinforcement strip.
In the right tip, I'm using one reinforcement strip per side as opposed to cutting several small strips like I did in the left tip.
Then, I reattached the tip to the wing and played with the fit once more. When I got it adjusted as best I could, I enlarged all the wing skin/tip holes to 5/32″ in order to accommodate the #6 screws that will attach the tip to the wing.
Finally, I removed the tip from the wing and countersunk all of the holes. As with the left tip, I found the best countersinking method to be the use of both a Dremel with a conical sanding stone and a deburr bit. I used this combo for both the screw holes and the rivet holes.
All that is left is to rivet the platenuts and the W-412 rib to the tip. This should take me only another hour or so tomorrow.
Left Wingtip Finished, Right Started (7/31/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Wings, Wingtips on July 31, 2011
3.4 Hours -
I started working on the plane in the morning with the intent of finishing the left wingtip before it got too hot.
The first thing I did was to rivet the W-412 rib to the wingtip with some CS4-4 blind rivets. With the rib webbing flush with the inboard edge of the wingtip, I think the finish looks nice. The edges of the fiberglass still look a bit rough, but I’m OK with them the way they are. If I get very bored, I may try to fill the area between the rib and the edge of the fiberglass to create a nice, smooth finish, but I’m going to have to get be really bored before I do any extra fiberglass work.
I reversed the W-412 tip rib in order to install it with the webbing flush with the edge of the wingtip. The downside is that I had to use pop-rivets.
Next, I installed all of the wingtip platenuts. Since these can all be reached with a squeezer, installation was simple.
The reinforcement strips and platenuts riveted in the left wingtip.
With the platenuts and rib installed, all that was left was to dimple the holes in the wing skin for #6 screws and test fit the wingtip. As I started to install the screws, I began to worry because the wingtip just wasn’t fitting the same as it did when I originally fit and match drilled it. As I worked my way toward the leading edge with screws, eventually, I couldn’t even get them started. After looking over the tip for a bit, I finally realized that I didn’t have the leading edge of the rib seated correctly in the skin. I removed all the screws I had installed, repositioned the tip, and, with great relief, I could instantly tell that the tip still fit OK.
I had the left wingtip attached with screws just long enough to check that the fit was still OK.
Once all the screws were installed and tightened (barely), I checked the fit of the tip, paying close attention to aileron clearance. When swinging the aileron, the top outboard corner of the aileron was rubbing against the wingtip when the aileron was moved into the up position. To fix this, I had to remove the wingtip and trim off some of the area near the aileron. For now, I just removed a small area. I don’t want to keep installing/ removing the wingtip and risk stripping screws or platenuts, so I’ll leave it like this for now and adjust it again, if needed, once the wings are attached to the fuselage.
The forward outboard corner of the aileron rubbed on the wingtip when the aileron was in the up position. I trimmed the wingtip a bit to correct this.
My plan was to quit here for the day, but I returned to the garage later in the afternoon to start working on the right wingtip. I was able to get quite a bit done, but it was really hot in the garage!
I’ll complete the right wingtip in, more or less, the same fashion as the left. However, on the right side, I decided that I’m going to try to install the reinforcement strips without epoxy. The reason for this is that about half of the strips didn’t stay glued on throughout working on the left tip. I figure that I should be able to match drill the tip to the wing and then just use clamps and clecoes to hold the strips in place until they are riveted on permanently. This should work since it is what I ended up doing on at least half the strips on the left.
So, I started on the right tip by trimming about 1/16″ off the edge all the way around and a bit more in the aileron area. Then, I test fit the tip and trimmed as needed to barely allow aileron clearance. Once the fit was satisfactory, I positioned the tip and clamped it to the aileron (the aileron was locked in neutral with the bellcrank jig). After one more inspection, I used my EAA membership card to create a small gap between the wing skin and the wingtip joggle, and I started to drill. As with the left wingtip, I’m only drilling to #40 now. I won’t drill to final size until all the holes for the platenuts are drilled.
Once the right wingtip was match-drilled to the wing, I marked where to cut for the aileron gap and returned the wingtip to the bench. After trimming the aileron gap, I returned the wingtip to the wing, removed the bellcrank jig so that I could swing the aileron out of the way, slid the W-412 tip rib into place, and marked the wingtip at the trailing edge of the rib. Removing the wingtip once again, I drew out the rivet lines for the tip rib, positioned the rib, and match drilled the rivet holes for the rib/tip. Once the W-412 rivet holes were drilled to #40, I decided that I had enough fun in the heat of the garage and called it a day.
Left Wingtip Final Prep Started (7/25/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Wings, Wingtips on July 25, 2011
1.5 Hours -
I was able to get a lot done on the left wingtip today, but I still have another day of work to go on it. For today, I finished prepping the W-412 rib (deburred and primed), enlarged the skin to wingtip holes to 5/32″, and I completed all the deburring and countersinking tasks on the wingtip. Since the countersinking had to be done on fiberglass, I used a combination of my Dremel with a conical grinding stone and a deburring tool. I’m trying to avoid using my countersink cutters on fiberglass parts since the fiberglass will quickly dull them and deburring bits are cheaper than countersink cutters. All I have remaining on the left wingtip is to install the platenuts and dimple the wing skin. Maybe I’ll be able to get to it tomorrow.
I decided to prime the W-412 tip ribs. There's no real logic to what I prime or don't prime on the wings anymore.
I countersunk the wingtip rivet and screw holes using both my Dremel and deburr tool.
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