The very first parts I made were the wing ribs. These were cut
out and formed mostly while riding down the road in a custom
tour bus that I spend about 220 days a year on. We travel coast
to coast performing Gospel quartet music, You might think that
this would leave very little time for plane building and flying, but
as it turned out I still was finished building in a reasonable amount
of time. About 2 1/2 years.
After building the spar, the rest of the skeleton of the wing went
pretty quickly. The aft ribs were fitted first then the forward ribs.
Just a matter of understanding where all the spacers go and making
the ribs fit so that the skin runs flush over the spars, front and rear.
Forward and Aft ribs awaiting spars
This was pretty simple, but time consuming
Starting to look like a wing now
just seemed like there were a lot of things that could go really
wrong. I could just imagine watching as the skin that I spent all
that time measuring and cutting, was crumpled in my home made
bending contraption. But after bending both skins with only a very
minor, almost undetectable flaw, I was quite relieved
In the picture to the right you can see my set-up for bending.
I used a 2X10 instead of a 2X4 as one of of the framing supports
under my table. This allowed me to use this as a stiffener for my
bender, to keep the middle section rigid. This worked well and
it was nice to have the bender on the table instead of the floor.
Much easier on the back that way.
No concrete floor to hold down the press, so
I used a 2X10 stiffener that was built into the
worktable in the beginning for this purpose.
sure that the aileron counterbalance weights were working properly.
Now its just a matter of fitting skins and riveting and this part of
the project will be behind me. After finishing the wings they were
stored on the walls of my not so spacious 12X20 hangar.
Just add skins and you've got wings.
Checking the fit of the aileron balance weights
All done and stored against the wall
time to start on the fuselage