Rib Templates
This is the ring guide on the router. I had to off-set the jig below by 3/32" to allow for the distance between the guide and the cutter.
1" strips of 1/2" MDF were cut and stapled around each aperture. I initially cut out a lot of the surplus with a jigsaw - less work for the router bit.
9/11/2005
The rib templates are now complete. A word of warning... the blue prints supplied do not correlate with the measurements. ie. the length of the ribs on the blue prints are about 7/16 longer than the stated measurement! This means that the stations along the rib and the position of the spar apertures are also off. When marking my cutouts on the kinko copied prints for the rib templates, I followed the actual measurements on the plans, as opposed to the 'print'.
Creating these templates has probably taken me around 9 hours of labour - probably the same / similar amount of time would go into building jigs for the trussed rib approach. The difference now of course, is that instead of building one trussed rib per evening, I can produce one rib in about 3 minutes. Next I will be examining how to make the aileron templates...
I suppose I need to get that damn expensive birch ply ordered from Aircraft Spruce'...
The four templates finally' finished.