Fuselage

The right wing is now sitting back in the cradle, and in the perfect position to clean up from all the drilling and install nutplates. So, here we go...

Above, the bottom of the wing is straightforward. Just deburr, dimple, and install nutplates. These use the conical-shaped nutplates for big dimples and flush screws. Below, working down toward the leading edge, installing nutplates on the fuel tank can be just a tad bit tricky due to the proseal that oozed out back when I built them. I carefully trimmed some of it away. There's not a lot of spare room for nutplates. Or for the dimple die in some places. But it all worked out okay.

Here's another shot of the finished work. The bottom of the wing is dimpled and you use the conical nutplates. The top of the wing, on the other hand, can't be dimpled. The wing-walk doubler makes it thicker than the bottom skin, too thick for dimpling, so you countersink it and use the regular flat nutplates. You may have noticed, as I mentioned the other day, that on the bottom I ended up drilling more holes and using more nutplates than called for in the plans. This is because back when I riveted the bottom skins on the wing, I inadvertently left every other hole open instead of every 3rd hole. A small mistake that results in 11 nutplates instead of 8. No harm.

This shot shows the flat nutplates underneath the top skin:

My right wing is finished! So then, I moved on and started on the tasks for the left wing. The first thing was to rearrange the shop by turning the fuselage around to point the other direction, and put the left wing on. My son Luke lent a hand and helped me out. Next is to install the forward bracket that bolts to the fuel tank bracket:

Just like I did a while back for the right wing, the bracket is bent slightly as necessary to get it to sit flat on both the fuselage and the bracket. Then a 1/4" hole is drilled through the fuel tank bracket in the notch of the attach bracket. You can see my handheld mirror is showing the reflection of the backside of the bracket. Then I drilled the nutplate holes and had to call it a day. Next, I'll be riveting the nutplate in place.

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