Aug 23, 2023     delayed Category: Wings

I haven't been making any progress for quite a while. My son and family moved here last fall, however the house they bought doesn't have a garage. He has just as many tools and projects as I have and needed to put them somewhere, and therefore my workspace is severely restricted. Its august of '23 and his garage is nearing completion so with any luck I can get my space back this fall and get going on the wing covering job.

  Feb 19, 2023     Aileron covering       Category: Wings

Time to start covering the wings.
Step one is prep the ailerons for covering. Mine are actually original Piper factory built ailerons. While cleaning up I found a signature and date from 1941, presumably from the person that fabricated them.
Wrapping with 2.7 oz dacron fabric was pretty straightforward. I used the Hipec Attach Glue (HAG) to attach the fabric to the aileron and then did the usual 2 step heat shrink.

  Mar 23, 2021     Test fitting       Category: Wings

Jan 2021 test fitting the wings. Small adjustment required to align the bolts. Strut mounts not perfect, angle is off slightly and the strut fork won't fit. Torch to the rescue, some heat and a little leverage aligns the fittings, but burns off the epoxy primer. No problem, will spot sand blast and re coat when spring comes.
Cable pulleys and ailerons mounted. Cables strung and cut to length, copper sleeves nico pressed with thimbles.

  Jan 05, 2021     Ailerons       Category: Wings

Aileron cove is attached in place with round head screws, should have used flat head and countersunk, might fix this later.

Aileron mod- with different wing tip the aileron end was changed to remove the curve, the straight trailing edge was extended to full length of the aileron

  Jan 05, 2021     Lights       Category: Wings

Sept 2019
Fab'd a pair of brackets for landing/taxi lights. These will be mounted at the outboard ends of the wing, bolted to the main spar.
I will control them in wig wag function for normal flight and also enable individual continuous op for night landing.
Lights are PIA led, leftover from a auto project.

  Jan 04, 2021     Trailing edge       Category: Wings

Mar 2019
Trailing edge was formed and installed using #4x3/8 round head and pre-drilled pilot holes into ribs.
Al channel was installed as to brace the trailing edge, pull riveted to the trailing edge and screwed to the end ribs.

  Jan 04, 2021     Wingtips       Category: Wings

Mar 2019
Wingtip alteration, modified to hoener style carbon fibre tips. tips sourced from a well known cub clone kit supplier, good fit to the rib profile. I added a plywood rib to the last full size rib. An Al angle was formed to the rib profile, nutplates were rivited to attach the wingtips, the Al angle was attached with #4x3/8” round head wood screws to the plywood rib. Not shown in the pics is large lightening holes in the plywood rib. If I did it again I wood eliminate the last rib and just use the plywood rib as the final rib.
Too late smart.

  Apr 18, 2020     rib layout       Category: Wings

Feb 2019
After varnishing the spars and all the ribs, its time to locate all the ribs and get them spaced correctly, First bay is for the 12 gallon fuel tank. With ribs located but not attached yet, the compression struts are bolted in as they set the final dimension between the spars. Some of the slots in the ribs need to be widened a bit to fit correctly in the spars. I put in the drag anti-drag wires and squared up the wing before doing final attachment of all the ribs including the false ribs in the leading edge. T-88 epoxy is the chosen bonding agent to attache the ribs to the spars. After bonding, each joint receives a couple coats of varnish.
The pics I used might show either left or right wing, both wings were complete before I started logging on this site.

  Apr 18, 2020     marking out the spars       Category: Wings

Jan 2019
Step 1 is to get the spars cleaned up with a bit of light sanding. The spars are clear and straight grained fir with more than the minimum grains/inch count.
The white pieces are the 1/16' plywood epoxy glued in the location of the wing attachment and lift strut attachment. The green strips are masking off the location of the ribs prior to varnishing. I marked and drilled all the necessary holes for all the fittings before varnishing. Coating of choice for me was a Varathane water based outdoor clear. I added a small amount of dark tint to the second coat so I could see if I missed anywhere.

  Jan 01, 2015     finding the parts Category: Wings

Sometime back about 2014-2015 I met another Cub builder who had acquired everything to build a set of wood wings. He had gotten as far as building all the ribs when he got an opportunity to buy a pair of salvage PA-18 wings that were ready for recovering. His wood wing parts became available and we made a deal.
The parts include fir spars, all the ribs, pair of salvaged ailerons, new sealed struts, compression struts, drag/antidrag wires, pre-formed aluminum leading edge, aluminum aileron cove and trailing edge peices as well as many extra new or used parts.