Ribs are Finished

Well, perhaps the title is a bit of a stretch. But rib fabrication is complete.  They still need to be varnished in order to be considered "complete".

This photograph illustrates the differences between a "standard" rib and a tip rib. The one in front is the tip rib.

The final tally?  Rib construction required (for me) 136 hours over seven months.  The cost in my cost sheet is a bit misleading.  I show $692.00.  But I have quite a bit of material left over.  Some of it will be useful later in the project, but I definitely over-estimated by maybe 10%, which isn't too bad.

I have a definite feeling of accomplishment.  There is a lot of work in building these ribs.  While it has been fun, it feels good to be done with it. 

Rib Home Stretch - Again

This is what the stack of full cross-section ribs looks like.  The foot-rule is there for scale.  There is something just over 1,000 gussets in this stack.

These have all been inventoried and tied to the drawings.  They are stacked in order with #1 Left on the bottom, then #1 Right and so forth.  One little task I do need to do is go through them all and make sure the tops and bottoms are smooth.  There are incidents where gussets or glue drops are "proud" of the capstrip.

The rib jig has been modified for fabrication of the two tip ribs, one for each wing.  These ribs have a somewhat narrower cross section than all the others.

Yes, I built this jig over the full size drawings supplied with the plans.  I figure this will work just fine for the two ribs.  I wouldn't do that for all the others.  If building wings again (not likely) I would use the same procedures I have used for all of these ribs.

The nose block and tail block are in place ready for the capstrip.

After an afternoon...

Side "A" of the first tip rib is all glued up.  Depending on the weather, Side "A" of the second tip rib and Side "B" of the first one will be glued up tomorrow afternoon.  The weather is a factor, because if good VFR conditions exist, I will go fly the C-150.  :)

At Work

Here I am working on the last two "regular" ribs.

Don't you just love the stacks of ribs?

They are now all glued up.  The next step will be to re-configure the rib jig for the tip ribs.

Premature Celebration

I completed the rib inventory...and came up two short.  It seems I skipped the 7A rib, one for each wing.   So I have another rib cooking in the jig, and another one to go.  I am glad I did the inventory before I started modifying the rib jig to do the tip ribs.

Not a lost day though...

Taken from a friend's Cub.  Anyone wonder why I love to fly in the Pacific Northwest.