Right butt rib work

Today we had a warm enough day to open up the garage so we could access the right wing and work on the right butt rib.  We had previously measured, cut, and drilled the T-mount that hold on that butt rib, but we noticed that the root rib on the wing just wasn't quite lining up correctly with the butt rib. We should have had 1/16" gap because we used 1/16" spacers to set the gap, but after setting everything in place with Clecos, we had no gap on top, and a larger gap on the bottom. This seems to have been caused by a combination of things, including a slight defect in the T-mount (not welded perfectly perpendicular), slight bowing to one of the ribs, and minor slop in the T-mount fit.

We made a variety of adjustments to take care of this, including sanding the root rib back slightly (about 1/16"), and welding a tiny bit of metal to the bottom of the T-mount so that it would fit tightly in the hole while angling it up a bit to help with alignment.  Also, similar to the issue we had with the left butt rib, we had to sand back the surface that is adjacent to the spar tube because of slight interference.  Once we made these tweaks, the butt rib lined up nicely with the root rib along the top edge with just a small gap (about 1/16"), and we riveted the rear T-mount.  The front T-bolt needed some paint before installation as some paint was removed to do the welding.  A coat of paint was applied to the bare surfaces of the T-mount, and we also varnished areas of the butt-rib that were previously skipped.    Hours: 2.5

Michael riveting the rear butt rib T-bolt to the fuselage