Joshua's RV-9A Project

Completed lots of little tasks on the wings today…

• Deburred the top skins and J-channels for the right wing; they’re ready to be dimpled, then etched & primed.
• Finished up the skin-rib rivets on the left wing top skins with Allison.
• Clecoed the left wing J-channels in place; ready to be riveted (along with the skin-spar rivets).
• Riveted the skin-rear spar rivets on the left wing.  Easy enough with the squeezer and 4-inch yoke, but the 5 inboard-most rivets are a bear, due to the thickness of the reinforcing bar and doubler plates that comprise the root of the spar.  Some creative combinations of squeezing and bucking were required here (eg. half-squeeze to hold the rivet in place, then wiggle the bucking bar in place and finish with the gun, since the squeezer is off center due to the spar bars).

With any luck, the left wing structure ought to be fully riveted by the weekend, and the right wing should be ready to go.  I’ll need to look at the plans for the wing cart, as well, and see what I need to pick up for parts.  The time is drawing near for the wings to come out of the stands!  (Stands were built January 2, 2009.)  I also have a plan for adding a second level of shelving to the rollaround workbench to increase its part-storage capacity, which (along with the removal of the wing jigs) will get the fuse parts organized, recovering one space in the garage for summer storm season, and allowing access to the bathroom remodel parts currently stored behind the fuselage kit…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Skin Panels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.