Well march was a writeoff

Where did March go?

Work, family vacation to Florida and a week away from home for a work conference left little time for any shop work.  It was difficult to be away so much, but it was a much needed break and I'm making up good shop time again this past week.

Took an hour and started comparing my CAD drawings to the templates already made for the 701.  Ron and I had previously sat down and compared drawings and it was a great exercise in determining the commonalities between the two aircraft.​

For example, I pulled out Ron's form block for the 701 slat rib and compared it to my CAD drawing for the 750 slat rib form (top right CAD drawing in the picture above).  It's a perfect match, which means that is one form I won't have to make for manufacturing my part:

Every form has a matching template for the aluminum that needs to be cut for the specific part (that's the slat rib template CAD drawing directly below the form in the picture above).  So somewhere the template already exists for this part, another thing I won't have to create for myself.

On the same track, I pulled a good number of templates and compared them to my plans.  Every template has a matching form (where a form is required).  What an amazing amount of time and labour this is going to save me:

Next up, I worked towards finishing the fuel tank bay repairs on the 701 wing.  As you may recall, I've been working on repairing the spar, rib and channel tops using a "L" doubler.  Working inside the nose skin is a challenge!

I made a spar cap doubler repair and test fitted it along side the new spar root doubler:

The only way to get this tight to the existing spar cap is to remove the rivets holding the spar cap to the web.  As I indicated, the room to work inside here is really tight and I don't want to remove the nose skin any further than it is and risk creasing the thin aluminum.

​Right angle air drill to the rescue!

With the required spar cap rivets removed, I back drilled from the rear of the spar into the new spar cap doubler and clecoed it in place.  Another parallel row of rivet holes will be drilled between where the clecos are and the lightening holes of the spar web.  This will be very solid when rivetted later:

Finished off fitting and match drilling the rib repair caps as well.  Other than some final drilling and riveting, the fuel bay repair is complete and waiting for the new fuel tank.

The next thing to do is replace the root rib with a brand new one.  Like a lot of the other repairs needed, it has less to do with being bent from the crash and more to do with poor workmanship by the original builder.  Holes that missed centre line, cracks from forgotten de-burring and the like.

Ron and I pulled out the root rib forms.  Root ribs are the same length as the wing ribs, but much shallower in height as the wing chord narrows dramatically as it approaches the fuselage.

Forms are what are used to shape flat aluminum into ribs or other structural components.  The flanges created by folding the aluminum edges over create rigidity in the part being formed.  It starts with matching forms:

Between these, the aluminum that is cut from the matching template is placed:

Before fastening the two forms togther, it's important to check the forms are oriented the correct way.  The forms have a beveled edge.  This is too allow the aluminum to be bent past the 90 degree mark and spring back to 90 degrees once removed from the form.  My first look at the orientation showed I had the forms backwards:

Wrong - bent aluminum won't even get to 90 degrees

Correct - aluminum will bend past 90 degrees and will naturally spring back once removed from the form block

The next important thing is to remember which way the rib flange is to be bent.  Often the same parts are bent either left or right, depending on what side of the airplane they are on.  It's about symmetry.  In this case I have the advantage of looking at the part being replaced and comparing.  Then I make a note on the part which way to bend it in case I get sidetracked on something else and button it together with through bolts and wing nuts: 

All prepped for bending

Also needing replaced is the wing root nose rib.  The original builder cheaped out and used non standard aluminum and again wasn't very careful with the drill.  I found the template for this piece and the form.

Comparing my 750 plans to the 701 plans indicates that this part is identical, so while making the new one for the 701 wing, it made sense to make my two at the same time.  My first manufactured parts.... YAY!

Grab the template and the correct aluminum....

Trace the template out, trying to make best use of aluminum and reduce waste.....

Begin rough trimming and drilling corner relief holes as per the plan dimensions.....

Finer cutting to eventual shape....

Marked with plans number and left/right. They still need final sizing which will come from deburring and final cleanup before putting them on the form block for bending.

So cool to make some parts for MY airplane.  Many, many more to come :)  Time to go buy some plywood for the remaining forms unique to the 750.

Oh look, my build time log has 1 hour for the wings!