Wing - Spars

2003-11-25 - Begin work on the Left Spar. (2.0 Hrs).

First eight nutplates installed--finally! Notice all of the metal shavings. I followed everyone's suggestion here to put tape over the joints on the spar--good advice.
Note, this is not really 2 hours of work here. I think I goofed-off at a least an hour before actually doing any work tonight. I received the wing kit over a week ago, and I have had a hard time getting started on the wing. I think I was afraid of screwing up the spar, but I finally came out and started drilling metal.

I looked at a lot of builder's websites, and everyone made a big deal out of making some sort of template when countersinking the middle hole for the wing spar nutplates. In order to leave room for the skin dimple to fit into, the middle hole of the nutplate gets reamed out much larger than the countersink guide, and the countersink bit tends to drift. Van's instructions say to use the nutplate itself as a guide. Countersink the two small holes, and rivet the nutplate to the spar. Then the #30 countersink will center in the nutplate itself. I have to go with Van here--it works great.

Here was an experiment to countersink the big hole without some sort of guide. Bad picture, but the hole on the right was unguided, while the hole on the left had a nutplate installed prior to countersinking the center hole. Obviously, freehand is not the way to go here. On the other hand, you can see how nice the hole is using Van's instructions.

	First eight nutplates installed--finally! Notice all of the metal shavings. I followed everyone's suggestion here to put tape over the joints on the spar--good advice. Note, this is not really 2 hours of work here. I think I goofed-off at a least an hour before actually doing any work tonight. I received the wing kit over a week ago, and I have had a hard time getting started on the wing. I think I was afraid of screwing up the spar, but I finally came out and started drilling metal.
	I looked at a lot of builder's websites, and everyone made a big deal out of making some sort of template when countersinking the middle hole for the wing spar nutplates. In order to leave room for the skin dimple to fit into, the middle hole of the nutplate gets reamed out much larger than the countersink guide, and the countersink bit tends to drift. Van's instructions say to use the nutplate itself as a guide. Countersink the two small holes, and rivet the nutplate to the spar. Then the #30 countersink will center in the nutplate itself. I have to go with Van here--it works great.
	Here was an experiment to countersink the big hole without some sort of guide. Bad picture, but the hole on the right was unguided, while the hole on the left had a nutplate installed prior to countersinking the center hole. Obviously, freehand is not the way to go here. On the other hand, you can see how nice the hole is using Van's instructions.