26 May 2013

Wings: Rear spar. Flap and aileron brackets riveted.


Following the priming of the rear spar components, previously, it was time to rivet together the aileron brackets.  Here they are, front and back.  The white/gray ones are due to there being two kinds of primer on them.  White:  EkoPoxy.  Gray:  Napa 7220.  On these brackets, I didn't like how the AN426AD4s were sitting in the countersinks.  They were just barely proud.  So I hit the holes again with the countersink bit to make sure the rivets would be perfectly flush, then spot primed the holes (hence the gray).  

 

One of the tasks required in assembling the aileron brackets is pressing in a bearing at the apex of the parts.  They suggest pressing the bearing in on a vise with a 7/16" and 9/16" socket on both sides.  It took some finesse, but I finally got the hang of it.  Of course, it just pushed out all the primer in the hole.  Here's a shot looking down on the vise with the sockets lined up on a bearing bracket spacer.  Slowly increasing the vise pressure pushes the bearing in.  Then, I double-checked to make sure the bearing wasn't seized due to warping.  When riveting the apex together, I applied clamping force with the vise to reduce any separation of the three bracket constituents.


Once the rear spars had all their doublers riveted in place, it was time to ream the critical hole.  That encompassed lining up the spar on the drill press and using the level to make sure everyone was orthogonal.  Here's a close-up following the reaming of the left rear spar.


And finally, here are the rear spars, ready to be riveted to the main spar via the ribs.  The yoke on the Main Squeeze couldn't quite reach in there without terrorizing the ribs.  Since I really don't want to bang these rivets with the gun, I'll pick up a longeron yoke to get the extra reach.  So, until I get that part, it's time to take a break from building and go play in the sky with a working airplane!


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