Left Wing Bottom Filler Work

After vacations and holidays we're finally getting back to working on the wings.  The transitions between ribs and spars is getting a thin coating of 3M lightweight filler to smooth the transition.  Before applying the filler the contact area was sanded and cleaned with acetone.  In addition to the rib/spar transitions, the area round the lift strut attach bracket was sanded and cleaned, as well as the area around the jury strut bracket.  We are also adding filler to the openings around the flap/aileron attach brackets.  We added tape to the outside of the gap and applied the filler from the inside (see picture).  Hours: 1.5

3M Lightweight Filler Added to aft wing area

Filler added to gap around Aileron/Flap Brackets

Left Wing, cont. filler work

Some sanding and another coat of  lightweight filler was applied the left wing.  After drying and some more sanding, we are now finished with the top surfaces of the left wing.  I forgot to take a picture of this before we flipped the wing over, so took a few shots from underneath after the wing was inverted on the table.

Filler applied around a lift-strut bracket (Wing is upside down)

Filler applied around the fuel-tank (Wing is upside down)

We also glued a wooden rib strip to the tank as mentioned in Appendix F of the manual.  The strip was beveled with a sander so that the joint came out pretty even on both ends.  The strip was fastened in place with epoxy, and held down temporarily with a few miscellaneous things lying around the shop while it dries.  Hours: 2.0

Rip cap strip glued down with misc weights on top

Even More left wing filler work

Sanded some more on the filler added on the top surface of the left wing.  Hours: 0.5

More left wing filler work

Added another coat of lightweight filler to the left wing surfaces, and sanded some of the areas.  Hours: 1.0

Left Wing Filler Work

We are in the process of cleaning up all the wing transitions with lightweight filler.  Areas include the leading edge "wrap" aluminum to front spar, leading edge "wrap" aluminum to the ribs,  trailing edge aluminum to ribs, fabric plate intersections, and the area around the fuel tank. We are using a 3M lightweight filler.  There are areas a second application of filler will be needed.  Hours: 4.5

Filler added around fuel tank

Filler added around fabric plate 

Left Wing Leading Edge Work

When we bought our Highlander kit, we had the factory install the aluminum leading edge.  The factory epoxied a 0.016" 2024-T3 aluminum sheet to the wing to smooth out the important leading edge section of the wing.  This process left some epoxy that needed to be sanded off to smooth out the transition.  We used a Dremel multi-tool with  a sanding head to remove the excess epoxy.  There are a few areas that will need some lightweight filler to finish off the transition. Hours: 1

Complete Nut Plate Installation in Left Wingtip

After riveting the nutplates in place yesterday, silicone plugs were installed into the nutplate threaded area to keep out epoxy.  You can see the orange plugs in the photo below.  Once the plugs were installed, a generous portion of Hysol epoxy was added to the the area covering the rivets and area between the rivets as indicated in the builder's manual.  After letting the epoxy setup for 45 minutes, a nice filet was made using a wet finger. Hours: 1.5

Nutplates installed and epoxy smoothed.  Orange Silicone plugs in screw holes

Nut Plate Installation

The nutplates on the top side of the left wing were installed.  The holes were countersunk to take CCC-32 rivets which were installed and then the nutplates were installed and the rivets pulled. Hours: 1

Nutplates on top of outer rib installed

Drilling Holes for Nutplates

After a much needed vacation and ordering parts from Aircraft Spruce we were able to do a little on the airplane again.  The Wingtips were removed and the holes previously drilled for screws were used to locate the two mounting holes for each nutplate.  The actual nutplates were used as drill guides.  The nutplates were cleco's to the rib through the center hole, and the mounting holes in the rib were drilled through the nutplate mounting holes for a precise location.  There are 25 nutplates to be installed in each wingtip area.  Time: 1 hour.

Left Wingtip Holes

We continued to work on the left wingtip mounting.  The holes on the bottom of the wing were laid out with a 2.75" spacing.  We are planning on using nutplates with AN526C screws, which is a 6-32 screws.  This requires a 9/64" drill bit.  We drilled a new hole in our edge drill guide we created earlier to have the needed spacing.  We made sure the wingtip was mounted correctly and level and clamped it in place.  We then drilled the holes and placed clecos in each location.  Hours: 3

Holes drilled and clecos installed

Nutplate to be used

Left Wingtip Work

Continued work on the left fiberglass wingtip. We laid out the mounting holes using a 3" spacing on the top of the wing. Hours: 1

Left Wingtip fitted

Spent a few hours fitting, trimming, sanding, and filing the left fiberglass wingtip.  It now looks like it fits very well, and has precisely 1/4 inch spacing between the aileron and the wingtip.  The trailing edge also lines up great with the wingtip.  We took our time and trimmed just a small bit at a time because it's easy to remove material, but very hard to add it back if you mess up.   We had an interruption in the middle of this work as power to the whole house was lost, but we were able to keep working after pulling out a generator and cranking it up. Hours: 3.5

Left wingtip temporarily clamped to wing

Various Left Wing Work

After a long day at work, we did some various tasks on the left wing and talked about future tasks.  One small section had to have some Hysol epoxy repair work.  We also started to discuss where to do some Hysol clean-up work on some of the Factory installed options.  We  also started to look at where filler is going to be needed.  Hours: 1

Fabric rivet holes, left wing tip

We finished drilling 1/8" holes for the fabric-attach rivets in the rib caps for the left wing.  These were spaced 3" apart along each rib on the top side of the wing (holes on the bottom side were spaced 2.75").  We also started fitting the fiberglass wing-tip to the left wing.  Hours: 2.0

Drilling Holes for Fabric Rivets on Wing Bottom

We decided to use fabric rivets instead of rib stitching on the wings.  To make drilling the holes easier, Ed welded up a drilling guide for the rib cap strip holes.  All we had to do is measure where we wanted the hole to be drilled and the guide allowed for a quick, precisely located hole to be drilled.  We played around a lot with hole spacing on the wing bottom.  When one hole was okay, another would be located in an undesirable location.  We finally settled on starting 1" along the rib cap strip from the front of the wing and the hole spacing was 2.75".  This allowed no holes to be drilled on or near the drag tubes and wing spars.  All holes were drilled in the bottom of the left wing.  Hours: 3

Ed drilling fabric rivet hole using drill guide