May 11, 2022     14-5 & 14-6: Right wing rib assembly - (3.8 hours)       Category: 14: Wing Ribs

Started riveting the right wing ribs to the spar. Going much better than left side. Taking my time, tape over the river set. No smileys. [Of course the photo I took has a slightly creased rivet.]

5/12 am - finished up the rivets in the morning before work before the shop gets too hot. Found that with the aileron torque tube bracket in place I had to put the shop heads on the rib. There needs to be some improvement in the sequence of that bracket installation. Suggest bracket to angle, then rivet rib to spar, then rivet angle to rib. Even that will be tough.

5/12 pm - got the various size bolts installed and torqued. Wing ribs are done except for waiting on the missing rib. Vans have a shipping notice today.

5/15 - missing rib arrived. Got it drilled, deburred, fluted, prepped and primed with a couple other small parts. Riveted in place and bolts torqued. Section is complete.

  May 09, 2022     14-3: Right ribs primed - (5.5 hours)       Category: 14: Wing Ribs

Hot day, but knocked out the right rib priming through the day. Disassembled the ribs from the spar, final deburr of all the ribs, then prep and prime. Just a lot of work. Hopefully that's the last big batch of priming for the wings.

I'll need to go back and prime that replacement rib when it shows up, but I think I can move forward.

Got all of the ribs cleco'd back in place on the spar.

5/10: Realized I forgot to prime and assemble the miscellaneous rib pieces. Snuck in a quick priming session after the kids were in bed.

5/11: Got the flap brackets and aileron torque tubes riveted. Found it was easier to rivet the torque tube brackets to the angle and the rivet the angle to the rib, contrary to the instructions.

  May 04, 2022     14-2: Right wing rib prep - (2.3 hours)       Category: 14: Wing Ribs

5/4 am 0.5 - Tinkered around with right ribs this morning before work. Received my replacement W-1012R and deburred and fluted it. Upsized the conduit holes in all ribs and deburred the miscellaneous parts on 14-2.

5/4 pm 0.5 - some additional deburring of flap brackets.

5/5 pm 1.1 - match drilled the aileron torque tube bracket and flap attach brackets. Took down the right spar and started lining up which ribs go where. Somehow had an extra 1012R rib and was short a 1011R rib. Hmm - curious because that is the replacement rib I already ordered from Van's. Review of my photos confirmed what I suspected - the 1012R rib that I thought I had messed up when building the left wing was in fact a 1011R. Not only did I mess up the cut of the rear flange, I cut the wrong rib entirely. Ugh.. Order a new W-1011R from Van's. The extra 1012R will actually come in handy as I had slightly "snowmanned" a hole in the left wing 1012R that I made a doubler to fix. Now I can just replace it.

5/6 pm 0.2 - match drilled the #12 holes from the spar to the ribs. Going to move forward with ribs and rear spar without the missing rib. Shouldn't be difficult to insert it prior to riveting the wing skin.

Purchases: Van's - W-1011R replacement rib

  Apr 23, 2022     14-3 thru 14-5: Left wing ribs prep prime and assemble - (10.0 hours)       Category: 14: Wing Ribs

Upsized the holes in the ribs for conduits and did a final deburr pass through everything. Relieved the aileron torque tube angle for the conduit hole as suggested in the plans.

Double checked the correct position and orientation of all ribs and marked their numbers. Prepped and primed the ribs in batches to try to maintain the order.

Assembled and riveted the flap hinge brackets and some of the aileron torque tube bracket. Missing bearings so just cleco'd for now. I'm glad I did too, because it would have been very hard to rivet the rib to the spar.

Cleco'd all the ribs to the spar and proceeded to rivet. That was very difficult and I had to drill out many rivets because the gun would jump and put a crease. I finally remembered that a little masking tape over the set would keep it from jumping. Got all of the spar rivets done and called it a day. A very long day.

Finished up Sunday morning by installing and torquing all the bolts. Additional QC of rivets revealed several more to drill out and replace. Ended up wallowing out one rivet hole in the spar web. Opted to upsize and replace with an AN3 bolt.

4/5 update: back-ordered torque tube bearings arrived so was able to rivet torque tube bracket together and rivet assembly ronin board rib.

  Apr 21, 2022     14-2 & 14-3: Left Wing rib fabrication and pre-assembly - (3.5 hours)       Category: 14: Wing Ribs

Started some of the light fabrication associated with the wing ribs. I cut the angles and spacer plates associated with the onboard aileron bellcrank. Went to cleco with the bearings when I realized those are in the one parts bag that was backordered. I'll have to check with vans to see if they're available, or I'll need to figure out how far I can make it. I think I can progress quite a bit without it.

Did some trimming of the ribs shown on 14-3. Was actually a little difficult to trim that rear flange off. Rough cut it with snips and then thought I could get the rest with the belt sander. Thought it was good until I saw the sander ate into bother of the flange tabs. One tab is probably ok, but the other definitely violates edge distance. Order a new one. Called it a night.

Picked it up Friday evening. Salvaged a new W-1012-R from the right side and redid the fabrication with a deemed cut off wheel. Much better this time.

Cleco'd and final drilled the aileron torque tube bracket and the flap hinge brackets. Got to use my 90 degree drill!

Cleco'd everything to the rib and double checked all the correct ribs were in the right spot. Match drilled all of the spar to rib attach holes.

Left wing ribs ready to prime.

Purchases: Van's - W-1012R rib

  Apr 20, 2022     14-4: Conduit planning - (1.5 hours) Category: 14: Wing Ribs

Just logging a little time to reflect the research on conduit and holes in wing ribs. I've referenced the Vans information and still don't quite get it. Well, I understand it, it just seems limiting compared to what I've seen people do.

I get upsizing the tooling hole closest to the spar for the pitot, but I'd like to run the AOA up there too. The W-1010 has a second hole in the bottom of the rib near the pitot hole and some have assumed they are free to drill a similar hole in all of the W-1011 ribs. Even if that was ok, I don't like that position because it will make riveting bottom skins more difficult. I prefer an additional hole above the existing tooling hole, sort of mirrored about the chord line. I've seen people do that, but again not covered by the Van's guidance. I will check with Van's I guess, but for now will assume that is acceptable.

For the main wire run, I just don't have a good feel for what will fit in a 3/4” conduit. Is one enough? Probably, but some people seem to run more.

And do I really want conduit anyways? Seems feasible that if you had to you could pull wires through the bushings.

To hedge, I'm leaning toward installing the snap bushings in the recommended holes per the instructions and then running a conduit in each wing. I'll use the conduit for my primary wiring and the snap bushings will actually serve as the future spare in case I ever need it.

If I'm running conduit - what to run? Probably some thin wall PVC or PEX tubing. There are easy PEX joist connectors that could blind rivet to the ribs at the lightening holes. Or Vans conduit with a one hole rivet connector similar to what I had for the VS, but that would use zip ties which I'm not excited about.

Conduit allows me to defer the decisions a little bit. What I need to know now is what to drill in the ribs. I think I will pretty much do it per plans, except drill an extra hole for AOA pending Van's approval.

4/22: update - going to drill an extra hole in the left ribs for the AOA in line with and above the pitot hole. Then upsize the existing hole to 3/4” for installation of Vans conduit. In the right wing, where most of the avionics are, I will go ahead and upsize the pitot hole to 7/16” and install snap bushings for additional capacity if needed.

  Mar 30, 2022     14-2: Wing rib prep - (4.8 hours)       Category: 14: Wing Ribs

4/30 pm 0.6 - remove vinyl and label. Start deburring
4/1 am 0,5 - more debur, child labor
4/5 pm 0.5 - lightening holes
4/6 am 0.5 - lightening holes through the W-1011Ls
4/8 am 0.9 - lightening holes through the W-1011Rs, debur edges through 1011Ls
4/12 pm 1.2 - through the edge deburr, half way through fluting
4/20 0.6 - finally finished all the fluting

Can't do anymore on the leading edges so I'll start knocking out some of the main rib deburring. It's going to take a while. A good evening activity.

Spending a lot of time on the lightening holes, knowing that I'm going to be shoulder deep into those holes soon. Deburr with the pencil tool, then scotchbrite. Was using the 1” wheel on the drill press but found using a pad and doing it by hand was as good if not better.