Lower Aileron II

10/21/2005

I did not have any 1/8 ply for the front hinge doublers, so I planed down some birch 1/4 ply on the thicknesser planer - nice to save 'some' money somewhere...

The spar capstrips have been fitted, I tacked them on with brads and removed them after curing. Ensure these capstrips stand a touch proud of the ribs - this gives you something to sand down to.

A project of this magnitude is bound to generate many a boo-boo [or as we used to say in the UK, a balls-up]. My first major boo-boo is that when I routered the spar apertures in the ribs, I had left the aperture corners radiused, not realizing that when the capstrips sit on top of the spar, there will be a 'valley' created - this can be seen in the pics below. I haven't decided the work-around for this yet, but I have basically two options; i) Laminate across the whole spar/capstrips with 1/32 birch ply that I have laying around, or ii) Fill the valleys with t-88. I will probably do the latter...

The in-board nose ribs were glued in place with spacer blocks. The blocks really help to keep everything square and true. If you notice on the pic, the spacer blocks have a bevel on the bottom side - this is so any oozing glue doesn't end up sticking to the spacers. When I get to making the out-board nose ribs, things will be a little more tricky...since there is a taper from the tip rib to the next main rib. This means these two nose ribs need to be slightly smaller around their nose-curve area...