A little progress XL H-58

[Chuck in Indiana]

Chuck, tell me about that Sparton radio in the background.  Is it original or a repo?  If it's original, is it for sale?

It's a repo "Bluebird." Even the repos are getting hard to find any more.

[rfeenstra]

I was at an auction in March where 2 original Bluebirds (one peach), 2 sleds, and a Nocturne were sold. Big bucks!

[Chuck in Indiana]

Finished up the four "normal" ribs this morning.
Here's a tip. I had some 3/16" scrap engineering plastic in my "good junk" pile. It makes much easier work of all that sanding on the cap strips.Just pull the long ones through while sanding with the oscillating tool. Short ones work well, too. The fixture keeps the caps from moving side to side, and the energy goes into sanding rather than making them vibrate. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

First of the four root ribs finished this morning. I like the little plastic Harbor Freight clamps for this job..

another nibble off the elephant.

[scottiniowa]

First of the four root ribs finished this morning. I like the little plastic Harbor Freight clamps for this job..

Well done and clean looking. (no extra weight from squeeze out glue)

[Chuck in Indiana]

Well done and clean looking. (no extra weight from squeeze out glue)

Thanks. A friend who is a luthier said to put enough glue on to just cover the joint, smooth it out with my finger and clamp it. "You want just enough that it barely squeezes out." He just today said to get some Bulldog clips, and I ordered them from Amazon. *Everything* is sanded before assembly, so there should be a minimal amount of varnish required to seal it. Pretty labor intensive, though..

[jrbirdman47]

As labor intensive as it is, it's worse if you wait to sand until assembled. As you know there's a lot of small, tight places to get to and sand. 
After building several ribs I could mix the exact amount of T-88 needed to finish a rib and have none left over and no excess on the rib. I took the little excess from the gusset I was working on and smeared it on the next one. By the time I got to the lat one I had juuuuust enough. Very satisfying for some reason. Also made it easier to estimate how much to mix for anything else. I'd study it and think "That's about 2 ribs worth of glue" and it was usually quite close.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Oh, yeah.. I couldn't *imagine* being able to do a good job of sanding after everything is assembled. There are way too many nooks and crannies. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D9BHKTY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Here is the last "normal" rib with the bulldog clips. They are just the ticket. I need 10 more, though.

I have the first of the compression ribs in the jig right now.
Sorry Leonard.. making sure those gussets are glued on for life, then "removing gussets as necessary" for installation of the compression members?    It makes a lot more sense to make them the right shape to me..

[Chuck in Indiana]

Getting into the aileron area now. Right wing ribs on the top, left on the bottom.

Made the aileron parts with templates and trim router.

I can say with authority that an N95 makes a fine dust mask..

[Chuck in Indiana]

Ok, all the "normal" ribs are done. Time to start on number 7. I have the Iron Design plans, and  they call out 4 of A1 out of 1/4" ply. Also 4 of the "stiffener" out of 1/8" ply. So, I dutifully made those.  When I looked at the PDFs and videos, I don't see any A1s at all. (scratching head) and only 2 of 1/8".
So.
It looks like on rib 7, there is a full sized gusset of 1/4", and covered on the other side by a piece of .8mm.
Made an executive decision and some more pieces. Modified the jig to do this. Besides strength, one of the most important parts is to make the rotation point the same in all parts of the aileron assembly. I had already carefully drilled a 3/8" diameter hole on location.
Made a Delrin pin .002" undersized that would be a slip fit into the jig and parts.

Since I couldn't find any use for the A1 parts I'd made, I cut them up and will fit 2 of them as an extra "filler" to beef up the hinge pin area. laid them in there, put a liberal amount of glue on the K block, cap strips and them, located everything with the Delrin pin..


Clamped everything down with the thumb screws, and pulled the pin. Glue doesn't stick to Delrin well at all, but there's really no need of testing *How* well. 

Will this all work out? Hopefully. We'll know in the morning.. stay tuned. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

Yeah, that worked.  I love it when a plan comes together..Rib 7R done, 7L in the jig.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Ahh, the one I've been looking for.. the 13th and final rib.  My home made (naturally) welder's third hand helps hold clamp pressure. It took me this much glue to build the 26 ribs. Well, quite a bit of that is on my pants legs..

Even the hinge blocks were located with Delrin pins,

so Shirley  everything will line up when I put them on the spars..no trying to keep everything square with a right angle drill, etc. (fingers crossed)

Well, if they don't, I always will have thought they should have. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

Started laying out the spar jig and realized I should have the aluminum fittings so I could drill the spars in the drill press instead of trying to keep everything square after the wings are assembled. So, cut up a stick of aluminum, and made them on the cnc mill.

Figured while I was at it, I might as well make some more 1/8" aluminum parts..
The rudder horn..

Aileron bellcranks..

Parts is parts. 

Whew! Beer o'clock.
Now, I can start on the spars.

[jrbirdman47]

That's even better than a hack saw and file!  Nicely done!