I got a bit of time today to get the inboard ribs completely riveted together. I now need to go down the line and rivet/bolt each rib into place on the spar web.


I got a bit of time today to get the inboard ribs completely riveted together. I now need to go down the line and rivet/bolt each rib into place on the spar web.


I got a bit of time tonight to work on the plane so I got the four W-1011 ribs rivetted to the flap hinge brackets and ribs together. I only had to redo one rivet as I wasn’t paying attention and the rib backed away from the bracket and left a bit of a gap. All in all it all went together pretty smoothly.


I finally got some time last night to get the ribs and other components primed. I got it all put back together again so that I can start riveting soon. With Fall break and trying to finalize my MBA it might be slow go for the next couple of weeks but I’ll keep working on it at least a little bit each night.


It’s been a long time over the past couple of weeks as I have been working on studying for my MBA and I’ve also started my commercial pilot training. I passed my CAX exam this past Friday. But over the past few weeks I’ve been spending some time here and there to deburr all of the rest of the ribs that were left. We’re all good and will soon be doing priming and riveting.


It took quite a while but I got it all done tonight while listening to an audio book for my MBA class. Next to do the right wing.


I got the W-1025B flap hinge ribs in today so I got them cut, deburred and then drilled all of the holes into the W-1011 ribs to match it. I also got four of the ribs completely deburred and ready for primer. The deburring will take most of the time over this weekend so I don’t think I’ll be doing any priming this weekend.

I had a bit of spare time tonight so I decided to finish the match drilling for the main spar and the ribs. Went pretty smoothly since all of them were already final sized it seems like. I just had to drill the #12 holes since they didn’t exist. Cailey joined me and I had to teach her a bit about how you hold the drill perpendicular to the surface you are drilling into. She’ll get the hang of it someday but she’s learning.


I’m waiting on my shipment of parts from Van’s to come in, which should be tomorrow. So I decided with a little bit of time I had yesterday to deburr the remaining brackets for the flaps. Not much work, but at least it is out of the way so when the parts come in tomorrow I can put them all together and match drill those ribs. I had mistakenly ordered just one of the W-1025B components when I needed three. So I used the one pair I had on the inboard ribs and ordered two more for the additional ribs that needed them. I also ordered the eyelets for the wings since I’ll need those down the line as well as the ELT mount for the empennage and the lower fairing doubler for the rear light on the rudder.


I got all of the inboard rib work done today this Labor day. I also clecoed all of the ribs to the spar so I can match drill them tomorrow. I built the wing holder which i will modify later to have the carpet on it when the wings are completed. For now the sawhorses were getting in the way so I needed to have this to put the ribs on. I will say…. The blocking that they had for this craddle at the end with the carpet is going to be in the way. The wing won’t sit level in the cradle the height it is at on the inboard side of the wing. I might end up laying that up a few stacks high of 2×4’s to get it to be level with the carpet. I also had an issue; there were two sets of 1010 inboard ribs. One looked like it was laser but but it felt like it was thicker material but I verified that it wasn’t with a micrometer. It almost looks the same except there are sections where there are relief cuts along the flange on the part that I knew was made through the normal press cut way. I went with that one and set these aside for now. I should have kept the list of parts I replaced. I might still have it in my email and I’ll have to double check.

I finally got through all of the ribs today. Had some sore fingers trying to adjust the ribs but it all came out good!
