Last of the major formed wing parts complete

Another successful week in the shop.

I continued to work on forming and flanging wing parts.  Last blog post I had started the forming of wing ribs, starting with the root ribs.  Here they are out of the forms - I'm happy how they turned out and using the hardwood dowel to work the metal flanges into the flutes on the forms made forming the curvatures of the flanges much easier.

As I mentioned before, I'm using Ron's 701 nose ribs forms.  The trick here was to pre-flute the blanks as the 701 forms don't have flute channels cut in them.

In the vice, I start by bending the flat trailing edge flange over as it is straight and does'n require any fluting.  Then the bottom flange, working forward towards the nose.

as I got close to the nose, I carefully worked the nose flange over, drawing the aluminum across.  The metal backing plate on the forms really helps in the this regard.

A little cleanup with a small tack hammer backed up by a body work anvil and some tweaking with the fluting pliers and the nose ribs are ready for lightening holes.

Six left and six right, enough for both wings

Lightening holes are cut on the drill press using the fly-cutter, set to the diameter of the flange dies (which are exactly to plans - in the case of the nose ribs is 115mm)

Lightening holes cut and deburred, awaiting flanges.

Next up, the wing ribs.  I used the exact same process here as the root ribs with a couple of modifications.  I stacked all the blanks together and drilled the pilot holes as a stack to ensure consistency in the forms.  Each of the ribs has 3 lightening holes, however two of the blanks have no third hole, so I pilot drilled those separately from the rest, but using the same layout as the others.

First blank/form in the vice and from here the forming is the same as the root ribs - using a hardwood dowel to massage the flutes.  All ribs are made from the same form, regardless of lightening hole requirements.  I added a small clamp at the tail end of the form to keep the forms tight.

All my wing ribs formed and lightening holes cut awaiting debur and flanges.  The two wing ribs on top are the two that only require front lightening holes, the rest underneath have three holes.

Took the day Thursday to travel to Sudbury and pick up a sheet of 063 aluminum and some flat stock needed for the wing and strut pickups.  I also grabbed a small chunk of 0.188 plate for the fuselage pickups.  This supplier is much cheaper than Aircraft Spruce and much closer to home.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the sheet came on a well strapped pallet which fits nicely in the back of our truck.  Over packaged for a single sheet, but it didn't cost anything to me, so that's good!

When back at the shop Friday, I planned on cutting off the pieces I need immediately for the spar doublers.  I laid out the rough dimensions while the sheet was still on the back of the truck.  This allowed me to nest them a bit and save waste.  All set to rough cut but unfortunately mother nature had other plans and a downpour forced me to abandon the plan and just unload the sheet off the truck for next time in the shop.

The flat stock is perfect for the spar and strut pickups, and the flat plate works for the rear wing/fuselage pickups.

I'm so fortunate to be able to use the tools and jigs and bending equipment of Ron's, it's saving me untold hundred of dollars.  One of the best examples of this are the flanging dies Ron had custom made at a machine shop.

In the front of the picture below are the two halves of the 115mm diameter flange die - female side on the left, male on the right.  It's easy to see the shoulder on both that creates the flange on the lightening holes.

The process is easy.  Place the blank over the male side....

Invert the female side and place it on top (carefully - the dies are heavy tool steel and dropping them will permanently damage the blank and maybe the die as well!)

A shop press would work well here, but two large C clamps and the bench-top edge work just as well.  Make sure to use two clamps the same so equal turns on the handles makes even clamping force on the dies.  I did four turns on each at the same time, going about a half turn each time and it worked well.

The distance to compress the dies together isn't much.  Top photo before compression, bottom photo at the end of travel.

​Take the dies apart and the flange is complete - total time about 2 minutes each once I got into a rythym.

The process is repeated for the wing ribs, using the correct flange die size where appropriate.

The smallest flanging die only requires a single C clamp centered over the hole.  Credit to my daughter Caitlyn for taking some of the following photos of me working!

After about 90 minutes, all the wing, wing tips, root and nose ribs for both my wings are now flanged and ready for fitting on their spars.

Something really cool looking about the symmetry of wing and nose ribs laid out side by side on the table

Next up, I'll get the 063 spar web doublers cut from the sheet I bought, bent and fit one to the spar.  Then I can proceed to add the spar pick up, the strut angle and strut pickup.  With everything fit, I'll drill/flange the lightening holes, begin drilling all the holes to correct A5 and A4 where needed.  After that, disassemble, debur, prime and reasemble for final riveting.  Just a few more steps!

​Thanks for following along, it was a productive week indeed!