2 hrs. today playing with the wing skins.  I want to plan it so I minimize any waviness of the skins.  Now that things seem to fit, it's time to rivet the rear spar.  The riveting of anything else is several (many?) sessions in the future.

Got my wires!

Bolted down the jigs.

Check one jig...

And check the other one (facing the same way!).  The same!  Note that even minor finger pressure changes the number, but despite that, I think I'm well within spec...

Let's not forget the stringers.

A test fit of the wing top skins!  Well, except the front part, which I haven't stuck on yet.   Nice fit!!

1/2 hr. trying a solution for Rib 9 suggested by Peter in Australia (building a 4) that he heard right from the people that actually build the planes in South Africa.

Put the rib in at an angle (20-30-ish degrees) such that the holes at the end line up enough to put cleco's in. Then pull the rib into line and put cleco's through the spar strengthener on the other side (you have to use some degree of effort to pull it and cleco the holes).

And... voila!  It works!  Of course I'll have to do it again with the nose rib in place, but the idea works.  When I finally get to riveting it I'm guessing the best way will be to remove only one cleco at a time to rivet.

Spent some more time this afternoon and put red dots on rear spar holes that should not be riveted until later (as per the instructions).

I only put the red dots on the holes that I would be tempted to rivet (because I'm riveting a rib or assembling the rear spar), not every single hole that shouldn't be.

The rear skin support channel (I think that's what it's called) doesn't go on until all the ribs are riveted in place.

1 hr. mostly frustrated...  Rib 9's flange which connects to the main spar doesn't seem like it was fabricated properly.

Holding Rib 9 against the stiffener on the main spar you can see that the flange holes don't line up with the main spar holes.  Seems to me the flange was bent too far down resulting in it being wider than it should have been.

So, I tried banging it as you can see here to get the holes to line up (though this doesn't seem to me to be dimensionally the same as if it were bent correctly at the factory).

After lots of banging.... Still well off...

Inside view where you can see the part is getting pretty scuffed up in the process (and it still doesn't fit).

Just played with the panel mockup today (FUN!):

1.5 hrs. organizing my workspace (I do this periodically to keep things nice and tidy :-)), checking my tail light and ruminating about the wing.

Check out my tail light by attaching it to a 12V battery.

Got my solder (note the brand and type, this is the one you want!) and my soldering iron.

3 hrs deburring, cleaning and priming most of the remaining wing parts.  Also decided that Rib 7 (both right and left) needs to be replaced.  The banging required results in a pretty ugly rib flange and also I was advised by some other Sling builders to get it replaced.

Here's me cleaning some parts with the Extreme Simple Green solution (3 to 1 dilution).

I updated my Paint Schemes page if you're interested in my early random ideas.

1.5 hrs. today trying to bend the flange as asked, but after further thought it wasn't making sense to me to try and make an "S" curve to bring the flange lower.  The flange was clearly bent in the wrong place and as such it was narrower than it should be and the hole was off-center.  It seems the right thing to do is bend it further down where it should be so the hole ends up in the right place.

Here's a side view of a "correct" rib.  Note that the notch is pretty shallow.

Here's Rib 7.  Note that the notch is deeper, suggesting that the bend is too high.

Here's the width of a good rib.  About 17mm.

Here's Rib 7.  About 15 or 16mm and the hole is off-center.

Here's Rib 7 after I re-bent it by banging it down with a wood block secured behind it.  So, is it right?  A test fitting of the skins is the only way to find out.

I will also be going through all of the wing build instructions today so I can come up with the riveting order plan.  As I understand from other builders that the order in the instructions can get you into trouble, I want to plan all the way through so that I don't have any gotcha's.

Meanwhile I've been working on the electrical system design using the Vertical Power Online Planner and making great progress.  Check out my Avionics & Electrical page for the latest.

2 hrs. playing with the wing jig and trying to adjust rib 7 which sticks out above/below the spar.

It was suggested by the factory to bang down the errant flange.  My first attempt seems to have just bent down the flange.  Not the intended effect...  The intention is an "S" curve to just lower the flat surface of the flange.  Another attempt tomorrow.

I realized that I had neglected to put in the bolt holding the rear spar to the root jig, so I removed the cleco's and put the bolt in.

I know these are very exciting photos!  :-)  Here's it after.

2 hrs. cleco'ing a test fitting of the right wing ribs.  Test fitting is critical so you can carefully plan your rivet (and part fitting) sequencing.

And it looks like a wing!

Hmm, Rib 7 is about 3mm too high.  And the bottom of the rib sticks out too (see next pic).

May be hard to see in this picture, but the top and bottom stick out from the spar level.  I measured the rib to be about 7 7/8" tall right next to the spar and the spar was about 7 11/16".

This is Rib 5.  The trailing edge of the rib sticks up about 3mm.  The other ribs are fine in their alignment with the rear spar.

Rib 9's holes don't line up with the spar holes.  This might just be that the flange needs to be bent more.

You need to put the flap tube in before the next rib to the right otherwise you won't be able to get it in...

2 hrs. working on the wing jigs and putting the right wing main spar on the jigs.

I found that the left wing root jig's holes were clearly drilled too small, so I lined up the right wing root jig (which has correct sized holes) with the left and drew the correct size holes.  That way I made sure that when I get around to drilling those out they will be properly positioned (or at least exactly the same as the right...).

I found (others have seen this too) that the AN7 bolts for the jig don't just drop into the spar holes.  I tried using the Scotchbrite wheel to thin the shanks (where it hangs up), but that wasn't going easily.  I was told that 7/16" bolts from the hardware store (these are not used in the final assembly) fit easier, so I bought those and still found it was a very tight fit.  I buffed them down (took a while...) and finally they went in reasonably easily (you need to let them cool from the buffing).  I was also told that the factory uses dry ice to super cool the AN7 bolts in the final assembly to get them to fit.

I used 4 bolts as it doesn't seem necessary to do all 8 bolts.

The instructions say to use M4 Button Head Screws and Nuts to attach the tip end, but I found those were loose fitting (the instructions say to center them) and I actually don't think the nuts were in my kit package, so I decided to do what Gordon did and just used cleco's.  They fit well.

The right wing main spar is up on the jigs!  Before going further I will bolt my two benches together and then bolt down the jigs to the benches (while ensuring that the jigs are perfectly level with each other).  Then I will cleco all the parts onto the spars.  I recommend this as the order of riveting that is shown in the instructions can get you into trouble.  For instance you need to rivet the inner ribs before riveting on the rear step ribs to the rear spar (I was told this).

1.5 hrs. yesterday riveting the wing jigs and then working on my electrical system design.  Vertical Power has a very cool online planner that I've been using and I've entered almost all of the components of the system.  It's not done, but check out what I've done so far, here.  Very Cool!  So Easy! :-)