Plate nuts and Brackets

Monday 11th August 2008, 6hr 55min

Installed platenuts on right spar. Installed mid-section attach nutplates on both spars. Installed tie-down brackets and bell-crank brackets on both spars. Added hardwood bearing plates to wing stand brackets.

Great wedding -over 200 present! Always nice to meet Dorothy's extended family again. Since this project began, I am not visiting Athlone (or Kilkenny, where my own family are based) as often as I would like.

Having installed the tie-down brackets, I found that I had drilled and installed the W-933R tie-down bracket upside down (with the tapped end facing upwards). As the nutplates for the bell-crank brackets are not symetrically placed on the tie-down bracket, it was not possible to just reverse it. Solution? - Just tap the other end of the bracket of course.

It turned out that Vans have sent the wrong platenuts with the new spars. The ones marked K1000-06 (for the inspection plates) were huge and definitely not 'as advertised'. The others were marked K1100-06 but it was -08 I needed to attach the tanks. There were plenty more K1100-08s elsewhere in the kit so I was not stuck for those - just for the moment, but there are no other K1000-06s so I will have to wait for Vans to send the right ones. Fortunately, these are to join the inspection hatches to the bottom spar flange so they can be installed at any time up to first flight. I installed the 62 K1100-08s and finished up.

Course Correction

Wednesday 6th August 2008, 1hr 40min

Completed reversal of leading edge ribs. Rearranged the workshop for wing construction. Glued posts for wing stand.

I wrestled the remaining ribs out of the leading edge and wrestled the correct ones in. None of them were easy - I definitely should have just disassembled the whole thing and started again. I bought more duct tape this morning so I was able to pad the saddles for the leading edge, which are now a perfect fit.

I had decided to erect the wing stand over to one side of the shop, leaving enough room to move around the back. This required me to move all three worktables across the shop to line up under the windows. With the castor arrangement, this was not a problem.

I could not find 4X4 lumber for the posts of the wing stand so I had bought 2X4s planed. This stuff was refered to in the store as "CLS". I don't know what that means but it was beautifully straight, nicely planed with radiused corners and had tight core-wood rings, indicating that it was likely to stay straight. I can't understand why it was so cheap ((€4.40 for an 8' length). Construction timber grows very fast in Ireland but it is not of a high quality like this stuff.

Anyway, I glued four lengths together in pairs back to back, with the rings on the end of the posts looking like this: [))][((]. I glued and clamped them overnight.