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[19 Aug 2011]

Wings :: Wing
Finished riveting ribs to the spars
4.5 Hours

Yesterday I left off having clecoed all the pieces of the right wing skeleton together and riveted on the rear spar. Today I hopped to it and riveted front spar to the ribs. I did this using the gun and had some pretty poor results at first. After a while, I figure out that you only need about 40 PSI to run the gun, otherwise it bounces and slides all over the place, next I found on the internet that if you put masking tape over the cupped set tip in the rivet gun, you get about 1000% better results. You just need to put a new little piece over the tip about every five rivets. I had some difficulties getting at the rivets on the front spar as I had to bend the ribs to the side to get the gun in there. Eventually, though, I got it done using the straight set as I found the double offset to be just about worthless.



On to the second wing, I decided to work a little smarter on riveting the left wing together. Instead of following the directions and clecoing the entire thing together before riveting, I started with just the front spar on the bench.

Then I clecoed one rib to the spar and set all five of the rivets. Here is after doing the first four. I started with the second from the left and moved right, then did the one on the left. This allowed good access with the gun and it was very easy to bend the rib out of the way because it wasn't attached to the rear spar and hence 13 other ribs.

After doing those first four ribs, I just worked my way down the spar getting all the ribs and rivets set along the way. Much easier than the other wing.

Once all the rivets were set on the front spar, I clecoed on the back one and went to work. In my experience, riveting the back spar first and the back spar last had about the same difficulty and frustration. I set all the -4 rivets first, then moved up to the -5s then -6s then -8s. I don't have the special flange squeezer yoke thing ($150) so I just used the gun to drive all the bottom rivets that the squeezer couldn't get to because the flange gets in the way.

Two completed main rib/spar assemblies!

Tomorrow I get to go buy some wood to build a wing stand for these puppies. Also I want to get an EAA tech counselor to come by and take a gander at my work so far. Done for tonight as I am beat after the heat and humidity and noise and work.
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