Wings

After a long break of a couple of weeks for the wedding, it really feels good to get back to work on the project. I didn't take any pictures today, but managed to get a couple of hours in. I deburred the right flaps' spar after clecoing and drilling the ribs to the spar. Then I clecoed the bottom skin on. It's ready to drill. But first, I also needed to drill in place the little FL-708 spacers.

July 3-4, 2008

Work on the flaps continues - 2.5 hrs.

It's great to have a holiday weekend with some time to work on the project. Happy 4th of July! My work on these flaps continues. I de-vinyled the left flap to prepare it for dimpling and riveting. Then it was back to work on the right flap. I cut the hinge to length, marked the 3/16" edge distance with a fine line down the flap hinge, and clamped it to the flap for drilling. I managed to get it drilled to the flap, then went to work bending the FL-706B brackets. I also countersunk the spars, and then dismantled it all for deburring and priming.

Here's the right flap hinge, in the middle of drilling it to the flap. Same process I used on the left one a couple weeks ago.

Close-up shot of the flap hinge drilling process. Below... all finished!

Next on the agenda is to bend these FL-706B brackets. The plans call for bending the ends of the brackets 6.3 degrees. I'm not sure at all how one can achieve that kind of accuracy, even if you had professional equipment available. In the end, matching it to the angle on the end of the flap is all that counts. Here you can see my idea of a homemade bending apparatus. I clamped the piece in my vice using some scrap aluminum angle on the jaws of the vice so as to not mar the surface of the bracket. The bend line is right across the top of the vice. Then I used my big steel backriveting plate as a big stiffener and clamped it firmly to the piece. My concern was to make sure the bend line was sharp and that I didn't bend the piece where it isn't supposed to be bent, or into a big curve instead of on a sharp line. This plate held the part that isn't supposed to be bent nice and straight. I hope that makes sense.

Here's the setup from another angle. If you look real close, you can see the fine red bend line that I marked horizontally across the bracket. I lined this up with the scrap aluminum angle piece in the jaws of the vice. With everything clamped in place, I started pushing on the plate to bend the piece. These brackets are thick so it took a hefty push to get it to bend. I used a thin cardboard template that I cut at an angle as close to 6.3 degrees as I could, to hold up next to the bent piece as a gauge, to judge how much of a bend I was creating.

Here you can see my best effort at getting the precise angle called for. The bracket looks thin and small next to the big backriveting plate. This setup actually worked very well for me. When I took the bracket out of the vice and held it in place on the flap, it matched the necessary angle perfectly! The other bracket (not pictured) was bent the opposite direction, of course. In the next day or two, I'll have pictures showing how this bracket fits on the flap, and you can see its purpose.

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