Left Wing IX

12/14/2006

While the aileron was in situ, I dug out the aileron tip bow, which had been of course the drop-off from the main wing tip bow. I then marked off and cut where the bow should line-up at the flow thru point where aileron meets wing at the outboard end.

Fabricating the gussets was a little tricky due to being so 'fiddly', the best approach I found was to set the aileron vertically on the bench, glue the bow in place, then add the gussets. The bench mounted disc sander pays for itself with little fiddly jobs like this. Shaping the bow from full thickness down to the trailing edge profile is not as daunting as it first seems. To mark a line, I used a flexi steel ruler, then with a very sharp block plane took off the main surplus. The final shaping was done with a long flat sandpaper block.

The pitot-static tubing was from A.S.S., the tube mounting was in the form of nylon cable brackets from the Home Depot. 1/2 x 1/2 spruce blocks were glued to the spar [making sure I kept well away from obstructions like drag wires] and the brackets screwed to them with a little epoxy in the pilot holes for good measure. Because the whole deal is very low pressure, I simply used 1/4 push-fit elbow nylon fittings for the alum' pipe to the plastic tubing courtesy of Home Depot.