Project: TerryS     -     Entry

Mar 24, 2024 2 wingtip prep Category: Wings
Theres a lot of cross pollination with fiberglass work, or at least the way I do it. If I have a job that requires just a dab of epoxy, I'll set it aside until I've got a bigger project and then do it all at once. In this case, most of the detail of what I'm about to describe is contained in the empennage fairing log entry from 3-23-24.

Basically, the wingtip trailing edges stick out aft of the ailerons about 1/4". This seems to be a common issue with RV's because I've seen a bunch of them with exactly the same thing, including my hangar neighbor's RV6. I've also seen both the issue and the solution detailed in other build logs. If you don't want to live with it that way, the fix is just to trim that area back to match the ailerons after everything is on and rigged.

My concern with this is that there isn't much holding the trailing edge together back there, just about 3/8" of flox. I'm not comfortable shaving half of that contact area away just for aesthetic reasons.

My solution was to add more flox and a few plies of glass in that acute angle. I'm not doing any trimming just yet because Vans says that if a heavy wing shows up in flight test one reason may be the trailing edge of the aileron isn't quite right and may need to be adjusted to be flatter or thicker. Seems to me that if I have to do that it might slightly change where the aileron trailing edge resides relative to the wingtip trailing edge. After flight test, once I'm sure the ailerons are in their final configuration, If I choose to correct this I can easily do it or have the paint shop do it with just a long sanding block without having to remove anything from the airplane.

While I was doing that, I also used the dregs of my epoxy flox mix to repair the aft outboard corner of the r/h wingtip. These tips were part of the used wings that I bought when I originally started this project and at some point, somebody had smacked that corner into something and broken the gel coat off down into the fiberglass weave in an area about the size of a dime.

Today, I sanded that all back down flush starting with some 60 grit, finishing it off with 220, and hit it with a quick coat of rattle can primer. Most of this will get cut off if I go back and trim the trailing edges even with the aileron trailing edges, so I'm not going to worry about 100% getting all the sanding marks out to a "prepped for paint" finish sanding it until then.


NOTE: This information is strictly used for the EAA Builders Log project within the EAA organization.     -     Policy     -     © Copyright 2024 Brevard Web Pro, Inc.