No pictures tonight since it would just be another shot of a pile of parts on my bench.  I finished deburring all of the flap ribs, brackets, and shims and dimpled/countersunk everything.  Once I get the spars ready, the flap components can be primed.

I drilled the flap brackets to the inboard ribs and spars, then disassembled the flap components for deburring.  I made it through most of the ribs before calling it a night.

The flap brackets needed to be bent to 6.3º.  I used my fancy digital level to zero out the angle before bending and beat on this with a deadblow mallet until it read 6.3º.  I then repeated this for the other bracket.

Here are the two brackets clecoed back together.  You can see the angle clearly here.  I need to diassemble the flaps and match drill these to the spars and inboard ribs, but I don’t have time tonight.

My son and I were both sick today, but I was feeling enough better by this evening to put a little time in on the project.  I started by drilling the hinge to the flap skin and spar.  I’m using the recommended 1/4″ edge distance.  If it turns out I don’t have enough edge distance on the other side once the flaps are aligned with the ailerons, I’ll switch the wing side out with the P4 hinge material that has a longer leg.

I had just ordered these long reach cleco clamps and they worked beautifully for holding the hinge material on while I drilled it.  I only ordered two, but they were so handy that I wish I had ordered several more.

I put the top skin on and drilled all of the holes to final size.  I didn’t take any pictures of it, but I also needed to make four 0.024″ shims for the inboard and outboard ribs to take up the space between the top skin and the rib where the bottom skin stops short.

Here’s a closeup of the inboard end of the right flap.  A bracket will rivet around this corner that connects the flap pushrod to the flap and transfers the load from the rib and spar into the pushrod.  The hinge along the lower right (where the hinge pin is sticking out) will rivet to the flap brace and bottom skin of the wing.  The curved top edge will tuck under the trailing edge of the top wing skin.  I can see why they say this is the easiest control surface to build.  I only started on this last night, and with the exception of the bracket I just described, this is ready for disassembly, deburring, priming and reassembly.

The portion of the bracket that rivets to the flap spar has to be fabricated out of a long piece of the aluminum angle on the right.  I cut two pieces to length and cut off part of the short leg to get the two pieces on the left.  It’s late, so I’ll match drill these to the rest of the bracket tomorrow.

I cut the large push tubes using the cut-off saw.  This was really the wrong tool for the job as it didn’t make a perfectly straight cut.  Fortunately, I was able to square up the end and still have it be the correct length.  I cut the other one using a pipe cutter which worked much better.

Here are the two large push tubes cut to length.  The extra is because the RV-8 push tubes are about 5″ longer each.

The push tubes get threaded aluminum fittings in each end.  Here, I’ve pressed the ends into the tube in preparation for drilling.

Using a piece of masking tape cut to fit exactly around the circumference of the push tube, I used a rivet fan to lay out six rivets evenly spaced around the tube.

Putting the tape back on the push tube, I marked for the rivet holes.

These were then drilled on the drill press using a #30 drill bit.

After disassembling and deburring, I sealed each end with tape and sprayed in some self-etching primer to coat the inside of the tube.  The ends were then pressed back into place and blind riveted together.

I suspended the push tubes between a couple of solvent cans using some pieces of wire so that they could be primed on the outside.

The push tubes are installed on the bellcranks using some long bolts and some bushings that have to be fabricated to the correct length.

The ends of the push tubes stick out of the inboard ends of the wings since they will stick into the fuselage and attach to the control sticks.

I also cut the smaller push tubes to length using the pipe cutter.  Unlike the larger push tubes, there is virtually no extra material.  The tiny piece at the bottom is all that is left.

The rod ends have to be pressed into place and either riveted or welded.  The plans call for aluminum rivets which a number of people have questioned.  Since these parts are all steel, aluminum rivets could corrode and cause these rod ends to loosen in the push tubes.  Needless to say, I’m going to have these welded.

Here is one of the rod ends pressed into place.  It shouldn’t take them more than a few minutes to put a quick bead around this joint using a tig welder.

I had a little more time this evening, so I pulled down all of the parts for the flaps, stripped the plastic off of the spars and ribs and deburred the main spars.

I drilled the ribs to the spars and then clecoed on the bottom skins.

Spacers of various thicknesses need to be cut and inserted between the ribs and flange that forms the rear spar.  These were then match drilled along with the rib to the hole already in the rear flange of the bottom skin.

 

My first tech counselor, Dan Checkoway, moved out of the area since he visited during my empennage construction, so I needed to find someone new.  Several people recommended Brian Dal Porto, a local RV-7 builder who is also an A&P mechanic, so I called him last week to schedule a visit.  He stopped by today to check out the progress on my wings.  He didn’t find anything that needed to be redone, but it was great to be able to run a few questions by him.  He said the quality of my work was very good and well above average.

I started out by fitting the aileron hinge brackets on the right wing.  One of the rivets interfered   with the hinge bracket slightly.  A few seconds on the scotchbrite wheel took care of that and the hinge bracket now fits perfectly.

I finished up deburring the aileron components and started working on dimpling the various components.  Dimpling the spar is tight, so I ground part of my 1/8″ female dimple die to allow me to fit in there.

I also ended up grinding off part of my 1.5″ yoke so that it wouldn’t scrape along the spar.

Here you can see that I can easily reach the spar dimples now without scraping the spar web or hitting the flange radius.

My shipment from Aircraft Spruce showed up today, so I used a couple of the adel clamps to secure the roll servo wiring harness.  You’ll also notice that I added heat shrink material over the connection to not only hold it together and keep it from being exposed to the elements, but it also prevents it from scraping the spar.

I cleaned, etched, and primed all of the aileron components.

First up is to rivet on the spar reinforcing plates.  The inboard ends each get a K1000-03 nutplate riveted on with flush rivets.  The inner row of holes on each reinforcing plate get riveted now as well since there is nothing else that attaches there.

The nose ribs get blind riveted to the counterweight.

Then the nose ribs get dropped into the leading edge skins and the spars are riveted to them (the closer row of three rivets here just above the nutplate).

Finally, the trailing edge skin is clecoed along the top side of the spar.  It’s far too late to think about riveting this tonight (almost 2 am as I’m writing this), so I’m done for the night.

 

Jenn helped me pull the wings down off of the jig this morning and put them in the cradle.  This is a big milestone in the construction of the wings, and it feels really good to reach this point.

I did the ceremonial tearing down of the jig tonight after work.  The garage feels so much bigger now.  It’s been about 4 1/2 months since I erected the wing jig, which seems to be faster than most.  Given my pace, it looks like I’m on track to fly sometime in the first half of 2011.