Wing - Fiberglass

2004-07-31 - Left wing tip. (2.5 Hrs).

I am finished with the website makeover, and back to working on the wing. The left wing is done, except for the fiberglass and paint. The instructions say to leave the wing tip until later in the project, but I just wanted to see how it would look.

It turns out that there is quite a bit of work to finish the wing tip. You need to file or grind off some of the wing tip at the rear to fit around the aileron. You need to grind off some fiberglass all along the edge to get the wing tip to fit into the end of the wing. I also discovered, that you need to file down the lip on the front in order to get a better fit. This also allows the wing tip to move forward a little;otherwise, the wing tip sticks out past the end of the aileron. This all takes a bit of time, since it's a lot of file, fit, file, fit, etc. And, of course, the fiberglass is a mess.

This is after I have cut out a notch at the end of the wing tip to match the aileron. I still need to file some more, since the gap is supposed to be 1/4" between the aileron and the wing tip. Also, the tip is a little long here. I need to file about 1/8" to match the end of the aileron.
This shows the notch along the aileron and the aileron bracket. Note, I am closer to the 1/4" gap than I thought, since the aileron needs to be pushed inboard a little.
The fit looks pretty good here, after a lot of filing on the front lip. When I started, the wing skin stuck out past the front of the wing tip almost 1/4".
The seam between the wing skin and the wing tip looks pretty good. However, I probably need to take off some more along the edge of the wing tip, because pulling in the rear seems to pull out the front a little.