A little progress XL H-58

[Chuck in Indiana]

Grandmother, who came to Indiana in a covered wagon train..(true story)  always said, "waste not, want not." I've had some of these little aircraft nails for over 50 years.

Time to not waste them.. She lived long enough to fly to D.C. to visit her daughter in a Super Connie, by the way. 

I didn't really have any clamps for these gussets, so just nailed them down.
Better check the weight..

Hmmm, doing the math in my head.. .002 oz. X 36 equals .072 oz. I can probably live with that. 
Moved the wing out into the hanger for the first time..

I'm calling this wing as done as it is going to get right now. I'll leave cutting the ailerons loose, nose ribs and skin, etc. until after the second wing is in the same condition. No need to tear down this setup.
So, that's it for a while. No need to post the same thing over again. I hope this has been of some value to someone.

[Kamcoman77]

Very informative photos. Thank you very much!

[ysifly2]

is that your Pacer ?

[Chuck in Indiana]

Modified Colt.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Oh. One thing I meant to mention. I just started cutting up the .8mm plywood without thinking about the leading edge skins. 
My cad sez 18.8" per skin.. that means you get two per 4X4 sheet. Uh oh. 
If I had to do it over again, I would cut two 20 inch slices off of each before even thinking about making gussets, etc. I need to order another 4X4 sheet..

[scottiniowa]

Chuck, I am sure you already know this, but some might not, remember the .8mm ply rolls one way easy, the other way "not so much"

[Chuck in Indiana]

Chuck, I am sure you already know this, but some might not, remember the .8mm ply rolls one way easy, the other way "not so much"

Actually, I didn't. It came rolled up. I just peeled off one and started cutting it up. Bad idea..

[scottiniowa]

Actually, I didn't. It came rolled up. I just peeled off one and started cutting it up. Bad idea..

Ok, this is where I will toss out a few ideas.  And I don't mind to be corrected as some of this is coming from memory only.  but with the .8mm nose ply. You can only get it to conform to your nose ribs one direction, trying to get it to form the hard way, is to little of radius for the ply.  

There have been some excellent photos showing how it was held during the glue process, but we made some simple sheet metal strips that were about 4" (might have been 3" that were longer than the nose ribs, and these had holes  (4, 1 on each side of rib, top and bottom) that our bungee cords hooked into..clamps can work too, but like to apply constant pressure during glue process,   you can really snug the ply to the ribs that way without fighting the main rib.  (alignment marks really help here.)

Don't be stingy with the glue, you can reach through and wipe excess off quickly. You can premark or measure where the contact areas are going to be, filling in a dry spot is pretty hard.

All of your hard work keeping things straight, pays off now.

Trimming to fit perfectly is possible. (mini block plane, razor knife, sanding block)  You can dry fit, alignment mark as many times as you want.  I like to do this with the wing pointing to the sky vs laying on a table, thus you can see both sides and makes the gluing a bit easier. 
Best of success.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Thanks for that, Scott.
Aaaarg! Aircraft spruce's robot says they will charge me $131.47 shipping on that $37.50 piece of plywood.    I'll talk to a human and see if they can't do better than that.

[914pete]

Thanks for mentioning the .8mm ply. I did the same thing, just yanked one sheet out of the box and started cutting gussets.
Question, I'm still building ribs and noticed you left off the short 1/4"x1/4" vertical cap strip and gussets near the trailing edge of each rib?

[Chuck in Indiana]

Thanks for mentioning the .8mm ply. I did the same thing, just yanked one sheet out of the box and started cutting gussets.
Question, I'm still building ribs and noticed you left off the short 1/4"x1/4" vertical cap strip and gussets near the trailing edge of each rib?

I did. Early on, when I was first building ribs,jrbirdman said:

    Chuck, my only real concern was that shrinking the fabric in that area might cause it to collapse slightly, however, some in the discussion held that it wouldn't do that either. I was looking for a cheap and easy way to peace of mind that did not include making more gussets to augment the hundreds of thousands it seemed I had already made for 4 wings, and that's why the plywood addition.

and I said:

As the NFL says, "Upon further review.."  I drug out my Pietenpol drawings, and the last vertical member in Bernie's rib is 11 3/4 from the trailing edge. As far as I know, they don't have a problem.. and are a real speed demon, to boot. 

So I made an executive decision and left it out. I guess I'll be the first to know if I *should* have put it in.. Wing number 1 seems stiff enough though.

[scottiniowa]

Thanks for mentioning the .8mm ply. I did the same thing, just yanked one sheet out of the box and started cutting gussets.
Question, I'm still building ribs and noticed you left off the short 1/4"x1/4" vertical cap strip and gussets near the trailing edge of each rib?

all though I have not seen a  poll summed up on this piece, it is shown only once... on some plans and never again as far as I can tell.  Like Chuck said there are many (aircraft)  with far larger spreads in space  (gaps) without it.

Scott

[Chuck in Indiana]

The right wing is coming along nicely, and while waiting for the glue to dry..   I rough sawed and drilled the lightening holes in the nose ribs. Ten 1/4"  and twelve 1/8". Half inch dowels keep them located. Machinist's parallel clamps, shaper parallels, and a Forstner bit made easy work of it.
Now this is done, I can stack a few and use my new found mad woodworker skilz    and a pattern bit in the router to make the inside and outside shape.

Leonard's material list is a bare minimum, btw. I ran out of big enough pieces of 1/4". Fortunately, I had some 1/8" left over from a long ago project, and glued them together to make three 1/4" nose ribs.

[jrbirdman47]

I remember this part. Knee deep in wood chips! Looking really nice there!

[Chuck in Indiana]

I remember this part. Knee deep in wood chips! Looking really nice there!

Oh yeah.. no matter how hard I try to keep the mess to a minimum, it will take me a month to clean up the shop after the wood work. It's been a learning experience, but I've almost had all this fun I can stand.