First step was to create the bending tool to bend the tabs on the wingtip closeout. Fortunately I had a scrap piece of 3/4" wood lying around. This was quickly turned into the required tool.
With the help of a digital protractor that provided the reference for the angle to bend, the tabs of the wingtip closeout were bent in a few minutes. Nothing really complicated and don't fuzz around trying to bend them to 1 degree of precision. This is certainly one of those Oregonian jokes that they try to slip in once in a while.
Trial fitting it showed that everything fit just fine, except for the one on the nose that had to be bent 116 degrees. It was easy to just bend it as required to match the shape of the nose skin. Clecoing it into place was the next step.
Except for one spot in the nose area of the closeout I was pretty happy with the fit. This one spot has to be addressed though as it looks like a nasty spot which could create some nasty noise.
And from the side view:
Now it was time to seat the rivets and ready for the fun part.
Here's another spot that I don't really like. I'll look into that when getting ready for painting and I might just fill this gap with some caulk or Pro-Seal to allow the paint to cover it up. This is located at the lower end of the main spar.
And there I was with a riveted wingtip closeout!
Not much more to do than to fit the last part in. Some match drilling is required here, although it fit in just perfectly.
BTW: For some reason Van's is very casual telling you which holes to rivet and which not to rivet on this last page. You'll have to figure it out yourself by looking ahead and understanding in advance how the pieces are supposed to go together. Also they don't tell you how to overlap the parts on this page. Try to think aerodynamics to make a good decision.
Then take a look at the previous image and note that the triangular piece is sharing one hole in the front with the wingtip closeout part!
Match drilling (without turning the wing over) and riveting was quickly done.
Leaving me with a finished left wing! 4 hours were spent today, bringing the total of section 17 to 53 hours so far. No bad, considering that I am priming. Let's see how the right wing goes ...
Some conclusions. The nose area thtat appeared to need some trimming is not so bad after riveting. Just a slight overlap that can be filled before painting.
For the nav light you should not rivet three holes. Unfortunately the manual doesn't tell you that and you have to figure this out yourself. Or drill out the rivets after failing to do so, which is what I did on one hole. So look at the following picture and note the empty holes. One is enlarged from drilling out the rivet to aggressively. This will be covered by the fiberglass of the nav light. Am I lucky or what?
And finally a picture that shows how I let the wing skin overlap that little triangular end piece. Look closely at the corner were the rear spar and the wingtip closeout meet. That were I put the forward piece of the triangular closeout underneath the wing skin. Looks nicer I think.
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