some shop time and upcoming road trip

Snuck over to the shop for a couple of hours Monday morning.  I'm trying to squeeze in time when I can and a few hours in the morning before I head to bed for my afternoon pre-nightshift nap works perfectly.

Work continues on the 701 wing repair/rebuild.  I managed to fabricate my first replacement piece, a rear wing channel.  It took some time to figure out how to use the sheet metal bending brake, but I got it done.  Here you can see the original bent and mangled one on the right and my new one on the left.  The previous builder for some reason made his channel with a thinner gauge of material than what the plans call for.  I'm all for saving weight and money, but this is a critical structural component, not something I would consider worth skimping on: 

Next was removal of the damaged nose skin.  As part of the repair/rebuild, Ron is planning on extending the wing by a couple of feet.  We'll cut out the damage, fabricate a tip extension to the main wing spar and add a rib where required.  A new nose skin and upper/lower wing skins and will be cut and fastened to the originals.  Of course, this means drilling out more rivets.  I suspect there will be times this will come in handy when I make mistakes on my own build!

This picture shows the extent of damage.  What do you think..... is this creased too far to be "popped out"?

The line and arrow mark was put on there as a reminder of what direction the skin needed to be removed. Somthimes as you flip the wing over on the bench, it's good to have a reminder which direction you are working in!

I drilled out the rivets on the closest good rib to allow some flexibility when cutting the bad nose skin.   We'll trim it cleanly back to the rib to enable a clean joint with the new extended skin.  These empty holes will become part of the stronger joint as a result.

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As always, I'm keeping my eyes open for good deals on things I need for my project.  Surfing the classifieds section of the Ultralight Pilots Assocication website, I came across an individual selling a complete rudder section for a CH750 for an amazing price that was too good to be true!  A quick game of phone tag and the seller and I agreed to meet on Friday this week.

On the road again.....  can't wait to get on the road again.....