Wing mounting final tasks
Hours: 3.8 | Posted in Wing & Tail JoinsAttempted to finish up the final tasks around mounting the wings tonight, in an effort to get at least one garage bay open for parking again. First up was drilling the wing root fairings, which turned out to be relatively easy. The fairing is pre-drilled all along it’s length, and the holes match up with open holes in the wing top skin. Once in place, the holes are match-drilled into the edge of the fuel tank skin. Then the bottom fuselage skin is drilled to the wing skin, with the aid of guide lines drawn on the wing skin before mating the wings. I first drilled all the holes to #40, then enlarged to #19 for the #8 screws. Once the wings are removed, these holes will be prepped and nutplates attached.
The other remaining task was to fabricate and install the F-996A fuel tank attach brackets, which mate with the beefy angle piece built into the inboard nose of each fuel tank. Cutting and shaping these was straightforward if tedious (due to the 3/16 thickness of the angle), but the bending appears to be the tough part…clamping them in the vise and using a crescent wrench (a la longeron bending) did nothing, nor did whacking them with a hammer and wood block, or attempting to compress them in the vise (as we do in other places when narrowing the spread of a piece of angle). Reading the typical online sources, it appears I just need to hit them harder, so that’ll be tomorrow’s task. Tonight, I’ll double-check that everything is done that needs doing before pulling the wings.
