May 29, 2022     17-4: Attaching leading edges - (4.0 hours)       Category: 17: Outboard LE

Still working with Max this morning. Got in a solid session and accomplished everything I wanted for the weekend.

Pulled the left wing out of the cradle and set it aside. Put the right wing in the cradle with the leading edge and cleco'd in place. Installed the pull rivets through the spar web, then bucked all the top rivets. Finished off squeezing the bottom rivets. Sounds easy but took an hour and a half of solid work.

Moved the right wing over to a table and repeated the whole process with the left wing.

Looks amazing. Took a while to just admire the pair of wings and then out them both in the cradles.

  Apr 15, 2022     17-3: Right LE riveting - (4.2 hours)       Category: 17: Outboard LE

4/15 0.7 - start right leading edge rivets. Going together smoothly. Even let Ben set some with the gun.
4/16 2.0 - finished most of top and bottom.
4/17 1.5 - finished right LE

Leading edges are done for now until I'm ready to attach them to the spars. I'm really proud of the riveting on these. Perfectly flush, no dings, barely even scratches in the skin. I avoided my tendency to overdrive too.

  Apr 11, 2022     17-3: Finish left LE - (1.9 hours)       Category: 17: Outboard LE

Got all of the forward most rivets done. Was able to get them myself without too much trouble. Did a little QC of my work and found about five rivets total that weren't perfect. Drilled those out and replaced. Set it aside and going back to the right LE.

Got the top two rivets and the splice strip rivets all squeezed on the right LE.

  Apr 08, 2022     17-3: Start riveting left LE - (3.1 hours)       Category: 17: Outboard LE

4/8 1.6 - bottom left done, half of top left done
4/10 1.5 - finished all but the front tips of left LE

Took the day off as were packing to go camping. Of course I snuck out to work on the plane too and started riveting the leading edges. Got in a nice zen-like rhythm. Remove cleco, final hole align with 3/32” punch, place rivet, check flushness, drive rivet, repeat…They all came out really good. One minor skin ding where the bucking bar slipped, but no smileys with the Boeing flush set. Was actually able to drive all the bottom rivets by myself.

Got back from camping and knocked out the majority of the remaining left skin rivets. A few in the very front that I'll have to get help with and do them outside of the cradles. Good progress though.

  Apr 03, 2022     17-3: Dimpling leading edges and cleco fail - (4.5 hours)       Category: 17: Outboard LE

Finished all of the DRDT2 work on both skins and then dimples the perimeter and all of the ribs on the right LE with the squeezer. Started clecoing it together. Found that if I start with the leading edge it is a bit easier to align the holes and get the ribs tight to the skin.

Got all of the right ribs cleco'd into the skin, putting a cleco in every single hole and got to the last rib which is supposed to face the opposite direction. It did face the opposite direction, but not the correct direction. I just cleco'd all the right ribs into the left skin! Ugh. That's a lot of clecos to undue.

4/4 update: Was able to put in another 1.5 after work and got left ribs dimpled, fixed the clecos for the left skin, finished the nutplate attachments and even squeezed the top two rivets on every rib. Setting it aside to advance the right LE.

4/5: got the right skin cleco'd in place and cleaned up the shop a bit before work. Going to set the LEs aside and go back to deburring main ribs.

  Apr 01, 2022     17-3: Misc work and priming leading edges - (5.2 hours)       Category: 17: Outboard LE

I was struggling with when I'd get a chance to prime since my weekends are booked. Today was a beautiful day though and I left work early to try to knock it out.

Disassembled the leading edges and deburred the few drilled holes. Countersunk the holes I. The splice strip and messed one up. For some reason the countersink wandered and severely elongated the hole. Drilled a new hole to install a one sided nut plate but a little worried about edge distance to the screw hole. Will check with Van's.

Got everything prepped and primed. About 500g of primer.

Installed about half the nut plates on the splice strips. Removed the remaining blue vinyl from the skins, set up the DRDT2 and did a few skin dimples. Lots more to go.

Got some more dimples done Saturday morning. About 60% of the right skin. I'll get ther perimeters with a squeezer.

4/3 update: I inquired on VAF if anyone by chance had a splice strip laying around. One of the responses suggested to just fabricate a new one since that's how all the older kits are done. I may do that, but I'm the mean time I think I have a good fix. I added a .032” doubler plate behind it and ran it continuous over two screw holes. Took a little work to get the holes all lines up, but I think it came out good. Filled the bad hole with JB weld for just a cosmetic repair and will paint over it when cured.

4/5 update: Van's said my fix on the splice strip would be fine. I may still redo it if I can source some material. Inquired with my EAA chapter if anyone has any.

  Mar 30, 2022     17-3: Fit up leading edges - (1.9 hours)       Category: 17: Outboard LE

Fit the ribs in the skins and cleco'd. Difficult to get everything aligned but it does. Installed the j-channels and drilled. Everything else was already final drilled except the #19s in the splice strips and quickly took care of those.

The weatherstripping on the cradles didn't hold up well at all and it was too tight. Replaced it all with gorilla tape and it is much better.

That's about as far as I can go on these until I have a good day to prime. Next couple weekends are booked so not sure when that will be. Also realized it's time to order the landing light mounts - will be easier to take care of before mounting to spar.

Purchases: Duckworks - RV-10 Round Landing Light

  Mar 29, 2022     17-2; Prep leading edge ribs - (1.8 hours)       Category: 17: Outboard LE

Was somewhat dreading the deburring of all he wing ribs, but the leading edges at least were very easy - not too many nooks and crannies. I did try to shape the nose a bit to get rid of any faceting; the tabs are so small though I don't think it will be as much of a problem as it is on the tail feathers.

Used my flange straightening tool, but actually found that the flanges were pretty much straight already; really just focused on the tighter curved areas. Ribs required pretty heavy fluting to lay flat on the bench.

Measured the cuts for rib modifications and cut them on the band saw and finished with belt sander. Deburred and cleaned everything up including the splice strips.

  Mar 28, 2022     17-2: Starting outboard leading edges - (0.5 hour)       Category: 17: Outboard LE

The whole point of working so hard to finish the spars was for the joy of getting out the leading edge skins and putting them in the cradles. I'm jumping ahead to the leading edges so that I have something to attach to the completed spar, rib, top skin assemblies and can drop them straight into the wing cradles I have.

I removed the splice strips from the tank skins and deburred the leading edge skins.

Ready for some fun work on something that actually looks like an airplane.

  Mar 26, 2022     17-2: Leading edge cradles - (2.0 hours)       Category: 17: Outboard LE

Had to break down the crates to put out in the trash and decided to go ahead and salvage some of the lumber to build the leading edge cradles.

Cut the stringers to length and cut rectangular panels from the plywood. Used leading edge rib as template with about 3/16 extra. Cut them on the band saw and then clamped together and did my best to sand matching pairs. Got them all screwed together and they came out really good.

Will add a little weatherstripping to finish them off.