8/18/2007
Mad picture man today! LOOOONG work day! I started this morning after our chapter breakfast by running out to Rob's house to borrow a couple of tools that I would need for the day. When I got home, I jumped right in with the process of setting the wing incidence and getting rid of any sweep (if needed). The first thing I did was make sure the fuselage was level left to right, and fore to aft (oh, I also removed the wingtips, which with hinge pins, took less than three minutes to have both of them off!!).
Too many levels? I think not!
Then I hung the plumb bobs from the leading edges. Two on each wing at the tip and root, and ran a string across the plumbs.
With the two outboard plumbs on the string line, the two inboard plumbs where both 3/16" ahead, which means the tips are each 3/16 of an inch forward sweep. Not enough to even worry about correcting. The plans give you 1/2" of tolerance, and had I ended up with something like 1/4"-1/2" or more, I would've corrected it. I also would've corrected if they would've been different, but surprisingly enough, they were exactly the same. It's indiscernible, and I can live with that!
I also measured the tips to a common point on the tail, and both were IDENTICAL to a 1/16 of an inch! On to incidence!
The plans have you make this crude level with a spacer to get the required 1 degree incidence. Like most builders these days, I used a Smart Tool digital level (thanks Rob!) to aid in setting this. Neither wing had any twist...the left was perfect with no correction needed (THANKS VAN'S!!!). The right wing was 0.2 up (?), so I pushed down on the rear spar to bring it to 0.0, and clamped the rear spars in place. Here are the "Zero's"--
Left wing...
Right wing...
I just used a little one inch C-clamp to hold each spar in position so nothing moved on me.
I then measured and marked the safe zone for drilling, and gathered the tools needed for one of the most nerve-wracking procedures of the whole kit...
There's one bit missing in that pic, but I started with the 12" #30 bit, then a #20, then #10, then a 7/32 bit, then a 1/4" reamer, then the 0.3115 reamer (final size). Here we go!
First #30 hole drilled...
All bits/reamers were lubed with air tool oil before drilling. Skipping to the end of the first (right) hole...
And the left side...
All is well, and edge distance is fine on all sides. The left side hole actually had next to ZERO tolerance on the inboard side of the spar, but came out fine at just over 5/8".
Whew!!! Glad that is over with!! Beer was the next item on the list! After that, I kept right on going with the wing fairing screw holes. These were marked and drilled using the lines I drew before the wings went on the fuselage. This picture is odd, as it's from underneath looking up at the bottom of the wing and the table stand.
Then I started on the tank attach brackets, the F-796A's. I had already drilled the upper hole in the fuselage, so I cleco'd it on, and found that I needed to bend it slightly to get it to fit flush. Took it off, and used the vise and dead blow hammer to persuade it a bit. I haven't drilled any holes on this because my angle drill attachment has not arrived yet.
I've never seen this shot before, but here's how the 796A looks from above sitting flush with the fuse and the T-405.
I'll set that step aside for now, and move on to the flap actuator rods. These are made from tube stock, and need to be drilled/reamed, and tapped after cutting to length. Here I am reaming one to #3 after drilling it out to #4.
And tapping the 1/4-28 threads.
The rod end bearings were installed, and they were set aside for a minute.
Almost done...next I reinstalled the flaps.
I had a little filing to do on each one to get them to go in to position without rubbing the fuselage...came out nice! But, I may have to file further to allow for paint.
The last thing I did this evening, was to start the flap actuator rod hole. This is really crappy part to work on. I'm not sure why Van's doesn't have this hole cut already. I didn't get very far without getting frustrated (been a long day), but here's a pic of where I left off.
Far from being done/final shape, but I'll get there.
LONG day!!
8.25 hours