Ribs / Rear Spar

Here we go.  Ribs are layed out and ready for sanding.

Priming the ribs took me so long that I met the security guard Gene on his late night rounds of the hangars.  What a surprise he must have had when he knocked and I opened the hangar doors wearing my breathing mask and dirty gloves while music was blasting in the background.

Stefan was able to help secure the ribs to the main spar.

Ribs done, what's next?

Priming has become my least favorite part of the building process.  The materials are toxic, smell awful, and are tough on your hands.  Moreover, the parts look bad after I'm done because I'm hand brushing and never figured out the paint gun.  I guess I'd rather have ugly internal parts instead of corroded parts that used to be pretty. 
I just can't wait to cover them up with the skins. 

The hangars are very quiet at night.  It's dark and isolated and a little spooky (you should see how fast I run to the port-a-potty and back), so you can image my surprise when at about 9pm and I hear this voice through the walls, "Hey, what station are you listening to?"  I'm thinking, who the hell is out here with me as I yell back "92.5."  Then I hear, "What are you doing over there?"  Before you know it, I'm having a conversation with the wall about my project.  After a few minutes, Daniel came over to introduce himself to me in person.  Being the only two people crazy enough to be at the hangars at night, we not surprisingly got along quiet well.    

 


All done.  Next up is the top skins

Main Spar

The wings arrived in two boxes on November 2, 2011, just two days before my Dad arrived to help jumpstart the project. 

Here I am with Stefan and my Dad.  We are just about to begin working on the main spars, which you can see laying acrosss the table.

The first job is to rivet the spar extensions to the main spars.  Stefan is seen here sanding one of them.  My Dad is helping sand the other one.

 The extensions have been riveted on the main spars.  You can see the silver extensions now coupled to the gold spars.

The wing access/fuel tank nut plates have been riveted to the flanges of the spars.  These nutplates will enable removal of the skins to view the fuel tank and interior of the wings.

Stefan and my Dad worked on the riveting of the nut plates.

I worked on countersinking every one of about 300 holes.

More countersinking.  You can see the shavings come off the holes.  The countersunk holes will receive the dimples in the skins.

My Dad and Stefan are attaching the tie down plates for the wings.

Four days later, we've completed the main spars.  They don't look much different to anyone but us.  Thanks for your help Dad!