April 27th, 2008 RV-6a left wing

Today we riveted the bottom outside skin for the left wing. The plans say to do the top skins last, which is what we did on the right wing. Its a little more difficult to do the bottom wing skins last, but the theory was that the top skins would look better if we did them first.
We have a final row of rivets to do yet, then we will mount the wings to the fuselage at long last.

















We almost forgot to run the conduit for the electrical wiring inside the wing before closing it all the was up. It helps to have a long reach for this if you forget.

April 26th, 2008 RV-6a Wing Skins

Today we took a slight break from working on the RV-4 and decided to finish riveting the final skins on each RV-6a wing so we can mount them to the fuselage.
RV4 chick does a great job riveting.
















Outer top right wing skin is riveted.
Now for the left wing which you can see in the backround on the left side of the picture below. The rivets on the bottom of the top wing skins will be riveted with the pneumatic squeezer later. It needs the outer bottom skin riveted in place. Its getting pretty hot during the day now in Arizona. Thank God we have a big evap cooler we use to keep us cool. We can only run it on low though or the circuit breakers will pop when the air compressor (or our neighbor's compressor) comes on. We are thinking about getting a portable gas powered A/C generator to put in the back of the truck to run the cooler on so we can use a higher setting.

April 24th, 2008 Right wing cont...

Set us a little jig template to use to drill the holes in the bottom of the rigs. One side does the inside ribs and the other side of the angle does the outer ribs.
















Below the rib is drilled to the spar with #40 drill and clecoed to rib. It will be final drilled to #30 before priming ribs.















Outer ribs are all drilled and clecoed.















Inner ribs are all drilled and clecoed.
Most of the inner ribs also have a 3/4 by 3/4 angle bracket that is riveted to the rib and then is bolted to the spar. You can see them in the picture below (they are the anodized angle).

April 20th, 2008 Right Wing construction

Spent several evenings straightening, sanding and fluting the ribs for the right wing. Sunday, the ribs were cleco clamped onto the spar web and the rear spar attached for initial fit.

















Looking through one of the lightening holes from one end of the ribs.

April 16th, 2008 Right Wing cont...

Started laying out the pieces for the rear spar for the right wing.




















Rear spar attach brackets drilled and clecoed to rear spar. This assembly is bolted to the rear spar attach brackets on the fuselage and holds the wing at the correct angle of incidence.


















Started work on wing ribs. Each rig is marked per the template sheet in the plans for where to flute it to make sure the flute points are between the wing skin holes.

April 14th, 2008 Right Wing work starts

Disassembled wing jig and moved from storage to our new hanger at Goodyear. Reassembled and adjusted it to be level.

Fuselage cont...

Saturday, RV4chick and I finished riveting the turtledeck on the RV4.

















While we were at it, we riveted on the attach brackets for the passenger shoulder harnesses.
















Sunday, I made some little attach tabs that go every 8 inches along the inside of the longeron. They will hold the static line in place as it goes from the rear fuselage to behind the instrument panel on the left side of the aircraft.