Right wing, top fabric

It's finally starting to look like a real wing, as the top fabric sheet has now been installed on the right wing.  For this process, we first glued it to the perimeter of the wing and used irons to remove wrinkles. We then shrank the large fabric surface at the lower setting (250 degrees), which helped pull it tight across the leading edge, tank, and ribs.  We again used small irons to remove wrinkles around the tank and the leading edge.  Next, we glued any remaining fabric contact areas that were not yet attached (portions of ribs, leading edge, and trailing edge).  At the ends of the wing, we cut the fabric with pinking shears, leaving enough to wrap around the edge of the wing.  Then we glued these edges down after applying 3 layers of glue to the edge.

After the edges were glued down, we cleaned out the fabric rivet holes with a drill, then applied some reinforcement tape across the holes, and used a rivet gun to install all the rivets along the ribs.  Lastly, we finished shrinking the top fabric surface in two stages at 300 & 350 degrees.   Hours: 5

Top fabric surface installed

Fabric wrapping around end of wing

Top wing Surface

After completing the bottom wing surface we marked where we wanted access plate rings to be installed.  We'll install the rings once the top surface is done and we start working on fabric plates and tapes.  We added three good coats of adhesive to the top of the wing on all the ribs, the top of the fuel tank and the aluminum leading edge.  We cut fabric to a rough size of the wing surface and starting at the leading edge we applied adhesive around the perimeter of the wing.  We had a few wrinkles to get out with a low 250F iron.  Hours: 2.5

Wing fabric

We finished installing the bottom fabric sheet on the right wing.  We shrunk it at just 250 degrees first, then installed the fabric rivets on the ribs, and finally shrunk the fabric at the higher settings (300 and 350 degrees).  We also trimmed and glued the fabric at both ends.  Hours: 3

Fabric

Rt wing fabric

We finished gluing the perimeter of the fabric to the bottom of the right wing.  We ended up with quite a few bubbles and bulges along the glued edge, but we were able to resolve these with judicious use of the irons.  Hours: 2

Wings, Adhesive and Fabric

We started the task of attaching fabric to the bottom of the wings.  First we had to determine what surfaces needed adhesive.  We then applied three coats of glue to those surfaces.  Boy did it take a lot longer to add the glue to these areas.  We were used to "small" parts, but now that we've moved to the wings it surprised us how long it took to add the adhesive.

Once the adhesive was dry it was time to attach the fabric.  In order to get a good straight line on the leading edge glue line, we snapped a chalk line on one edge of the fabric and then cut to that line.  We started attaching the fabric to the leading edge, working from the middle outward.  Once we were happy with that attachment, we added the thinned adhesive to the rest of the leading edge, wrapping around to the bottom surface of the wing.  We used irons at 250F to get any bubbles/wrinkles out of the glued fabric.  We had to cut holes for the strut attach bracket and jury struck bracket.  We also had to do some custom cutting around the leading edge cuff.  Finally we started working our way down the rib caps.  Hours: 5

Added three coats of adhesive to the wing

Fabric glued to the leading edge

Fabric Glued to the bottom of the ribs

Wing Rotisserie

We finally started working on the Wing covering.  We have the wings temporarily stored in our shed, mounted up in the rafters.  We brought one of the wings into the garage and started making plans for mounting the wing in our rotisserie stands.  We went to our local Home Depot Aviation Supply headquarters and bought some metal tubing to make the wing mounts.  While Mike did the cutting of the tubes, Ed did the TIG welding.  We used 1" square  metal tubing.  Once the welding was done we drill holes to match the rotisserie and mounted with AN3 bolts.  We also bought foam pipe insulation and placed it on ends that go into the wing spars.  We mounted the wings into the rotisserie so that we can begin the covering.  The wings were wiped down with Acetone and Isopropyl Alcohol Hours: 5

One end of the Welded Rotisserie Wing Mount

Wings mounted in Rotisserie

Ed wiping the wings down with IPA