I had planned this weekend to test the fuel tank for leaks but discovered quite by chance that I need to do some more work on it. The left tank (and maybe the right one too) has a second fuel line hole, apparantly for a fuel return line. I had seen it but for...
For the wingtips I bought a 3 in 1 navigation/position/strobe LED light from Zenith, the Pulsar-EXP from AeroLeds. With the wing tip in place I drilled the mounting holes for the light into the wing tip and then disassembled everything for deburring. After deburring I put the wing tip back in place (minus the...
The last two remaining items before the wing is finished are installing the wing tip and drilling the root skin (though it won’t get installed until the wing is fit to the fuselage). The root skin starts by taking the wing root angle and bending it around the root rib. The angle is completely...
I’d been putting this off long enough, time to cut the hole for the fuel sender. I had already marked the rough position of the lightening hole in the rib, so then it was just marking the centre location for the sender unit. I had done a lot of research on how to cut...
And now for something completely different: the fuel tank. And this really is something totally new, I have no idea how these things work (other than fill with fuel, fly plane until empty). The fuel tank is held in place inside the wing by sticking cork strips to the edges so that it is...
One of those days where you feel good – riveting!! First though, I drilled some holes in the rear channel for the pitot tubing and ran it from the tubes out through the trailing edge This allowed me to close up the top skin on the outboard side. I had to finish deburring the...
The strut on the bottom of the wing gets a doubler for strength (I presume) and this is made from a pre-fabricated strut angle and a gusset. The first task was to position the strut angle and back drill into it from inside the skin. I did a lot of this from underneath the...
Started out with 90 minutes of deburring all the holes associated with the top skins, nose skins, trailing edge, ribs, channels, and spar. Not much more to say about that. Before riveting the skins on we have to put a few things inside. First up was the tie down ring that was drilled quite...
Nose skins, the bane of this plane building lark and we struggled a bit this time too. Using great care not to bend the skin, or to snag it on the slat supports, we pushed it around under the top skin and taped it shut. Then we got out the ratchet straps from earlier...
Our drill and drill bits arrived and Dad’s idea was a hit! It was slow going to open the holes to the right size but a few back and forth with the hand drill eventually got the holes opened and, after some deburring and priming, the flaperon arms were riveted to the rear ribs....