Left Wing, prep for more fabric

We did a little bit more work with the irons to remove some bubbles we discovered after gluing down the doilies to the left wing.  Then we started adding new coats of adhesive, this time for installation of the top fabric piece.  We applied a few coats of the glue to the leading edge, the fuel tank, the top surface of the ribs, and part of the trailing edge.  Hours: 3.0

Adhesive (greenish color) brushed on for top fabric piece

Left Wing Fabric, bottom surface

We installed fabric rivets on the bottom of the left wing.  These rivets are really just a backup to ensure that the fabric can never pull away from the wing.  The rivet lines were covered with protective tape.  Some finishing fabric tapes will eventually cover all these lines of rivets.

Next, we trimmed and glued the fabric at both ends of the wings.  Then we performed the final fabric shrink on the bottom surface, shrinking the fabric at 300 and 350 degrees with irons.

Next, we decided to go ahead and install access port rings and doilies on the bottom surface.  We measured and cut out the doilies from some pre-shrunk lightweight fabric, and also determined where we needed to install the plastic access rings.  We applied glue, installed the access rings, and glued down all the doilies.   Hours: 5.5

Left wing with rivets, access port rings, and doilies installed

Closeup of doilies for an access port ring and the pitot tube

Left Wing Covering Started

With the right wing safely stored away, we started working on the fabric covering for the left wing.  First, we cleaned up the wing, as it had accumulated a nice layer of dust while being stored in the shed.    We cut two large sheets of fabric for covering both sides of the wing (but are starting with the bottom side first).  We applied three layers of glue to the bottom ribs, leading edge, trailing edge, and fabric plates.

We laid the fabric over the wing, and started gluing the bottom sheet in place, starting from the trailing edge, then the ribs, then the leading edge.  We had to carefully trim around the strut attach brackets.  The fabric was shrunk at the lowest setting (250 degrees), and then we finished gluing the rest of the leading edge.  A soldering iron was used to burn the holes for fabric rivets and nut plates.  We will install the fabric rivets before shrinking the fabric at the higher settings.  Hours: 6

Bottom fabric on left wing, with partial shrink

Leading edge., before the scrap hanging down was trimmed off

Fabric rivet holes and drain hole opened up with soldering iron

Top view of wing shows how the fabric wraps around the leading edge

Right Wing Covering Completed

We finished covering the right wing this weekend after gluing down the last protective fabric tape, which was a wider 6" tape that will protect the leading edge of the right wing.  This was a nice accomplishment, but now we get to do it all over again on the left wing.

Fabric covering completed on the right wing

The left wing was stored up in the shed rafters, so we hoisted that one down so we can start the fabric covering, and then hoisted the (now covered) right wing back up into the rafters for storage.  Thunderstorms were building up as we were moving these wings around, but we got lucky and the rain didn't start pouring until we had everything safely stored away.  Hours: 3.0

Trailing Edge Tapes Done

We added the two trailing edge finishing tapes to the right wing.  The top edge was done first followed be the bottom edge.  On the bottom edge we had to cut small notches where the aileron and flap brackets were located.  Once complete we used a soldering iron to burn the weap holes and screw attach holes.  The holes around the aileron and flap pulleys were cut to their final size.  Hours: 2