Arrangement

I spent some time today re-arranging the shop and getting setup for the varnishing party.

Here is the shop all set up, with a rib hanging from the drying line. 

Trough

February has been a difficult month for progress on the airplane.  Between family, ministry and work obligations there just hasn't been much shop time.

But I did get some time in to prepare the "trough".

The plan is to varnish the ribs by dipping them in the varnish in the above trough.  Some of you may recognize that this is the rib jig turned upside down.  With some modifications.  The rib jig did not have the end pieces.  The near end piece is not installed all the way to the end because spar varnish is expensive and I want the trough to be only as large as it needs to be.

The seams have been sealed with Titebond III.  I used that adhesive because it was handy and it will suffice to do the job.  The lighter patches are Durham's Water Putty covering over places where screws, as part of the rib jig, came all the way through.

Now I just need to find the time to re-arrange the shop and go shopping for the spar varnish. 

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.

Just a bit more Rib work

The last regular rib is setting up on the jig.  Starting work on the tip ribs.

Upper left hand corner is the nose blocks for the tip ribs.  Directly below that are the end blocks for the tip ribs.  On the right side is a leading edge rib that goes between the last full size, regular, rib and the tip rib.  The darker plywood is the patterns for the parts. 

I always make patterns.  It serves to make sure the finished parts are all identical, and I work out production methods while doing the patterns.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!