The End of The Blue Plague

I was out at the hangar on Saturday morning to fly out for breakfast but the wind had not developed as forecast. It had looked like I might have a small window to get to fly before 10am but it turned out that the wind had developed way before that. At 6:30am it was already at 11kts, gusting to 16, and 40 degrees cross to the runway with the crosswind runways closed for maintenance. The wind would turn further cross during the morning and also increase to 20+ knots, so I decided to just take a quick hop around the pattern as I has not flown for a few weeks due to a vacation.
The good thing about this blown out morning is that I finally got to remove the last trace of the Blue Plague from the bottom of the left wing.

Not a very good photo but I hope you can see the lack of any blue plastic sheeting on the bottom skin.

I guess that completed the build :-).

Next I will really have to take care of the unpainted plastic and fiberglass surfaces as the sun is starting to take its toll on the surfaces.

Right Wingtip Finished

In anticipation of sanding and cutting fiberglass today and in the near future (Finish Kit), I decided to give in and get a bandsaw as well as a belt sander. This triggered quite an odyssey as my favorite store, Harbor Freight didn't have a band saw I would have liked. I got the belt and disc sander there though and then went to Home Depot to look for a Ryobi bandsaw, the one I've seen Dave in Ohio using. That was successful as far as it concerned the saw but they were out of fine bandsaw blades (!^%$@#) so on my way home I passed Lowe's and picked up a Bosch 18TPI saw blade. I also finally bought an electric screwdriver to drive recently purchased hex deburring bit. It is kind of silly to manually deburr the tailcone and both wings and then get the motor driven version when there's not that much left but I have a feeling I might become a repeat offender and then I'll have it in the shop.



I put both machines right to work after finishing the wingtip skin. I still had to match drill and deburr the 6 holes on the trailing edge of the little triangular skin closeout. And, yes, I put the deburring driver to work as well. It's really nice on my wrist!. Forgot to take a photo of the tool though.


Finally done with Section 17, the right wing is done! Exactly 90 hours spent on Section 17, this sums up to 176.5 hours to finish both wings - short of the flaperons. Current Hobbs meter on the build shows around 370 hours.

I used the bandsaw to cut close to the scribe line of the nav light fairing. NICE! The fine blade went through it like a hot knife through butter and I could very easily and precisely control the cut. I love this saw! Then I used the belt sander as much as possible to sand to the scribe line and the rest was done by hand. The inner cut could get done by anything else but the angle grinder again as there just wasn't enough clearance for anything else. But that was done within a few minutes and I just ignored the dust or stood windward of the little wind we had. The fairing was quickly sanded to shape and I could drill the rivet holes and prepare the epoxy to fill the wingtip rib side.


I was a little better this time about the amount if epoxy I put in there but still I had to grind a little bit out to allow for the upper nut to have enough room. I also trimmed back some excess epoxy that had been squished towards the inside of the fairing where it wouldn't have any structural function anyway. I cleaned off the car wax I had used on the wing, crimped the Molex connectors on the wires, hooked up the light with a battery and tested all the wiring in the right wing by firing those lights of.
Great show as it was dusk already!
Then I clecoed the fairing back on to be ready to run the masking tape around the outline of it tomorrow and join the Pro-Seal club.

Main Wingtip Skin RIveted

After coming home from work, I started bending the tabs of the main wingtip skin and getting it ready for installation. It was soon clecoed in and proved to fit just fine. I noticed a rivet that I had pulled earlier in the bottm skin that interefered with the last little triangular closeout to be installed in the final step so I drilled it out.


Soon after starting the riveting joy, the main wingtip skin was completely riveted and I clecoed the triangular closeout in place. I didn't want to start match-drilling at night with bad lighting and a whole lot of cold moist air from yesterday's extensive rain but I at least checked that the skin lines appear to be parallel.


Tomorrow I will finish the right wing and then get the nav light fairing matched and ready for riveting. With a little luck I should be able to join the Pro-Seal club and finish the nav light installtion on the wings during this weekend as well.

Landing Light Installed

Like on so many other days before, I didn't really want to do that much but then ended up going the whole nine yards anyway.
And so I started early to prime the wingtip skin and the flaperon and landing light parts that I had prepped before. Because of the flaperon ribs being rather finicky this priming session took two hours to be completed.

Here's the wingtip skin getting a tan...


... and the small parts drying on the spraying rack.


And then when the priming was done and I had given the parts a little time to dry I needed to know if the holes I drilled yesterday were any good for the light installation, so I clecoed the landing light ribs in to see if I needed to do any fluting on them to match them with the holes as suggested by the manual.


Wow, I was impressed and a little proud of myself. Nothing had to get fluted whatsoever, everything just fitted in right away. So out came the parts again and the doublers were riveted on and the ground wire was manufactured. Nothing new in that department. The landing light cables were crimped with Molex pins and here I discovered an issue!
The Molex pins are too big for the tiny little cables that come out of the LL-200. They are so ridiculously thin that the pins fall off after crimping with the recommended A and B positions on the crimping pliers. I had to flat crimp the wires to keep them on the pins and so I decided to back this "crimp" up by soldering the wires to the pins as well. I hope this was good enough to make this a reliable connection. The pins were part of the LL-200 provided by AeroLeds, so it's not Van's fault but sure a bad impression that AeroLeds left with me.
And so it was time to put everything together and do the actual installation. I pulled the nav light wire out and rerouted it through the two new snap bushings that are part of the landing light ribs before putting the ribs in. I figured that be easier. Actually now that I've done it (with the wingtip still open), I suggest anybody doing this installation on a fully closed wing should follow Van's suggestion for people with large hands and put everything together outside of the wing. This should limit the aggravation factor dramatically!


Then I remembered that I hadn't installed the terminal bracket yet and the manual was asking me to shorten the wires for the landing light, so I thought I should rather make sure that the wiring is installed as it will be used later before cuting anything too short. So, on went the bracket.


And finally the new ribs and the wiring got installed in the cutout.


This shot shows better how the nav light wire routes through the new snap bushings.


Before finally installing the light I hooked it up and tried it with a battery using the newly installed terminal bracket to make sure I had the wiring correct.


After installing this light mainly through the wingtip lightening holes (am I glad I didn't close that up yet!), the moment of thruth was there!


The flash went off but you can still see the lights are on. It's not that bright by the way. I would have expected a little bit more lux if you consider what this lighting package costs...
Here's another shot with the flash off:


Oh, you might have noticed that I jumped over the section of trimming and drilling the plexiglas cover for the light. Somehow I got carried away as I wanted to see if the ribs matched the holes I drilled. Now I will have to go back to that and also reset the light to its rear most position to make some room for the dimpling and trimming the glass to size.

Prepping of Wingtip Closeout Skin Done

I got a little extra time on Friday and decided to do some of the prep work to be ready to prime the next parts (and beyond) on the weekend. I finished the cutout for the wingtip bottom skin and also deburred everything as well as prepping the surface.
Then I noticed that nothing else was left in this section so I picked the ribs for the flaperons (section 18) as my next victim and I prepped them. I didn't get to take a photo but you'll see the parts today after priming.

Forward Wingtip Rib Installed

Sounds like a lot but is more a joke. I just had to do it before the next step which will require a bit more preparation to get finished and I am considering to hold it off. So this forward rib needs a lot of aggressive fluting to match the curve of the forward top skin. I was aware of that and yet still it takes some time as you have to cleco it on and notice that some of the clecos don't go in well. Mark the spot, take it off again, flute a bit more or use the seamers to reduce the flute and then cleco it back on.... and so on. After half an hour I was done with the adjustments and had the part riveted on.


Then I took a moment to roughly cut out the nav light access hole into the bottom wingtip skin. I used a drill to get an access hole in first and then used the nibbler to cut out the main part of it. Tomorrow I'll use a die grinder to do the fine work, followed by edge deburring. Then it should be ready to get primed and installed. This weekend I should be able to do this but then I thought I might hold off of riveting the skin in place.
The reason is that I will have to install the landing light which is just on the inboard side of the most outboard main rib and leaving the bottom wingtip skin off would allow me to get my hands through the lightening holes of that outboard rib and possibly make it easier to get the landing light installed. As well as making it easier to get the dirt and debris out of the wing after I'm done with the cut out for the landing light. So maybe I do the landing light installation after shooting the primer on the wingtip skin and while that's drying. Sounds even better to me now that I spelled it out :-).

Right Wingtip Coming Along

Before even starting to do anything on the wingtip this evening I tried to take another (better) shot of the interior of the wingtip from that angle below the top skins. I think this one was better than the one I took last night.


Then I quickly finished riveting the top skins. So quick that I actually forgot to take a photo of the stages until I was done with it. It's not that complicated so maybe just as well.


Then the rear wingtip rib should get riveted to the rear top skin. That required trimming of the outboard tip of the rear spar just as it did on the left side. Here's the unmodified tip:


And this is after the treatment.


The wingtip rib went on easily as it doesn't require any fluting or adjustment (it is actually ment to adjust the shape of the skins and not vice versa).


And tomorrow I'll probably work on the forward wingtip rib, which requires a lot of fluting to shape it to the wingtip curve. And then the wingtip is almost done - less the nav light installation (oh messy fiberglass dust ...)

Right Wingtip Started

Tonight I finished riveting the nose skins on the right wing. This was a little left over work from the weekend that I just couldn't finish then. Didn't take long to clean that up. This is how I found it:


And half an hour later it looked like this:


According to the manual I would have had to run the wing over and work a little on the bottom but I figured those few holes could get riveted easily working over head.
So I clecoed the handle, the wingtip rib and the little skin part on.


Using my trusted mover's dolly as a creeper again, I riveted the skin on and the rib and the handle used the help of the PRP-26 riveter. No big deal.


Then I clecoed the top wingtip skins on and noticed that I had forgotten to remove the vinyl from the rivet lines on the forward skin. Duh! Nothing serious, I could peel the vinyl off along the rivet holes and put the clecos in. I will clean this up later before putting the right wing in the cradle.


By the time I had finished the clecoing of these skins it was already after 8pm so I thought I call it a night. Not before taking one last shot from underneath though. Unfortunately, it appears that the flash along with a long exposure time messed up the effect of this cool angle a bit.

Right Top Skins RIveted

I didn't mean to do a lot on the wing today but then it seems that once I started I must have gotten carried away. Anyway, it the right wing is almost done, less the wingtip and the riveting the skins to the nose ribs.

Around noon I had the top wing skins clecoed on (and checked multiple times that I didn't forget to do something inside the wing).


Then the first set of rivets was set and were ready to get riveted (notice the Raid in the corner? We are having some nasty bees right now that are looking for a new home under the patio roof).


The first set was riveted in, clecos removed and the next set of rivets set.


The top skins are all riveted on. Please note that the wing doubler has also been clecoed on. Before getting fancy on the nose skins you should get the doubler riveted in place as this will add some tension to the structure.


Riveting the doubler on takes quite some time as the tension requires to go line by line, removing clecos, tap drilling if required, setting rivets and pulling them. So I thought to better call it a day when I was done with that as it was already getting dark.

Right Top Skins Primed

Today we had a wonderful sunny and warm day in Tucson and the even the wind was calm. A perfect day for shooting primer out in the open. So I started prepping the skins in the morning with Cortec-440 and then in the afternoon I shot the primer. I think, I finally have figured out how to get the best, smooth results in almost just one coat with the Cortec 373. Shoot it undiluted at around 70 degrees and shoot it wet, rather a little more than just not enough as this will show some dry spots later and it's a bit hard to tell while the primer is still wet but it sure shows when dried and held against the sun.
Try to apply a good coat on the first run and try to avoid touch-ups as this will create roughness if applied after the first coat has already dried.

Here are the three skins getting a tan:


I also got the top rear wingtip skin and the wing doubler done.



Tomorrow is supposed to be another warm day and I think I might go for a little flight before maybe riveting the top skins on later in the day ...

Top Skins Ready for Prepping

I finished riveting the the nose part of the bottom skins today. Only the first 5 rivets and the ones left open on the bottom leading edge should get riveted in this step.


With the help of two ratchet tie downs it was quite easy to get the skins pulled down tight enough to match the holes of the ribs to put the clecos in. Riveting them then was done in no time at all.


The next step was to put the flaperon hinges in place and this already took me quite a while on the left wing before. The right ones were not different at all. It was quite a fight to get them in and riveted. But after a while even that was done, including a touch on the scruffed primer.


The rest of the day was then spent on preparing the top skins for prepping. All the skins were deburred, some edges slightly broken and the rivet lines cleared from vinyl and the edges marked for extra priming on the top if they needed it.
At the end of the day all was neatly stacked up and ready for the Cortec-440 treatment to come.

Right Bottom Skins Riveted

Within about 2 hours I finished riveting the bottom skins on the right wing, removed left over clecos and blue tape markings and the wing is ready to be turned over.


I am somewhat amazed how much faster the right wing came together so far. On this page in section 17 I needed almost 20 hours for the left wing and the right wing got to the same point in just 15 hours. I would have expected a bit less than for the left wing but that much of a difference surprised me a bit. Let's see if I can keep this momentum up.

Riveting on Right Bottom Skins Started

I seated all the rivets for the bottom skins this evening and while I was doing this on the outboard skin I realized I had forgotten to drill the hole for the tie down ring. There was no good way to do this without taking the skin off as I would have drilled into the tie down threading. Oh well, I had to remove the rivets I had seated and remove all the clecos and just move the skin over a bit to get clearance for drilling and then I could safely widen the hole to 3/8". No problem but half an hour lost to this.


Riveting was fun as always but I couldn't do more than half of the rivets along the main spar and on the nose ribs. I also removed the clecos to open the holes to receive the next set of rivets. For now I leave them open though to not interfere with the air hose while I'm riveting the rear of the wing.
I probably do some more work on that tomorrow evening. It is supposed to get a bit warmer the next few days, so that'll help.

Bottom Right Skins Clecoed On

I fabricated the two wires for the landing light (I assume constant and flashing light function have separate wires) and ran them through the wing, along with a thread and the wire for the nav light that I had already lying around from when I made the wire for the left nav light.


Before I had started the wiring task, I had touched up the priming job on the skins and let them dry in the heated shop. So when I was done with the wiring, I assumed the skins to be dry enough to put them on. As I now have enough clecos I didn't worry about doing the skinning one skin at a time but put them all three on.
By now the sun had set and boy was it getting frosty. I'm sure that Dave is going to laugh at this line as his Ohio hangar is probably colder right now even with his running "cone of comfort" heater. Anyway, for me as a Southern Arizonan 40 degrees is way too cold to be comfortable. The halogen lights helped while working close to them but my feet didn't care about that at all.
I was definitely happy when I put the last cleco in and didn't even think about starting the task of setting the rivets. No way! That's up for tomorrow or another day.


All I could pursuade myself to do after clecoing was to mark the holes that shouldn't get riveted yet. Just in case I would forget to do that at the beginning of the next session.

Right Bottom Skins Primed

What an unusual day it was today. It started out cold but very sunny. The morning was too cold to shoot any primer as the minimum temperature for the primer is 45 degrees and the thermometer didn't make it that far up. So we went for a little hike up Sabino Canyon to lose some of the weight we gained over Thanksgiving. Walking back down the canyon clouds were building up quickly and the sunny day turned into a grey November day, accompanied by some nasty gusts.
When we got back home, the cloud layer covered 80% of the sky and the gusts kept on rolling so there was no thought of spraying primer. I am aware though that it will take some time until it is getting warmer again and I am really worried that I might run of usable weather to get the skins ready before it will be constantly below 45 degrees. As today was the last day of the weekend and my only chance to prime the bottom skins before next weekend (which I wanted to use for the top skins and get it over with), I needed an idea how to prime in windy conditions.
It was then when I realized that I don't have to use the HVLP gun to prime the skins. They explicitly say that you can use any method to get the primer onto the metal with Cortec-373. You can spray it, roll it, brush it and even dip it. So, I scrounged through my painting utensils and soon found a nice synthetic short hair roller that was perfect for the job. Fortunately the skins are all flat and perfectly suited for roll application. Good choice as it turned out because just when I started rolling the primer on, it then started raining on top of the gusts. And I was snuggly covered by the house and the patio cover working on the lee side of the wind. After two hours I had put two coats on each skin and now they are stacked in my workshop with the heat turned on to dry them.

Right Bottom Skins Prepped

I finished deburring and prepping the right bottom skins using my trusted Cortec-440. Splashing with water (and subsequently getting wet) is really not that much fun end of November, even here in Tucson. Fortunately, we had quite a warm day and I could do the splashing part of the job on the Western side of the house so I had some sun shining in my face (and dried quicker).

Finished Section 15

After the cold morning had been warmed up by a sun shining from a beautiful blue sky, I set up the priming job. 12 nose ribs had to get shot and I knew with those low temperatures the drying process would take much longer than usual. Despite the wait the job was done within 2.5 hours and the ribs were put in the sun for deeper drying.


After about 2 hours of "tanning" in the sun I riveted the ribs to the wing. I also riveted the stub spar onto the nose ribs, so that the wing is practically ready for the skins - if only they were ready.



So now I'll have to get the bottom skins ready. More scrubbing and priming ahead!
But Section 15 is done. Overall time for this one was 50 hours.