Ch 19 Wings, Alierons

This is a simple step, just cleaning off the glass areas and smoothing out the foam as required. I made sticks with the distances marked as you see in pic 1 and spent a crazy amount of time getting the glass areas clean. This is meant to be easy because we have previously layed peel ply between the foam and skin layups so it should just come away clean.

Turns out that I needed to spend hours with a sharp chisel on the areas that didn’t come under the peel ply and that stuff didn’t want to come off cleanly in some other places. Given the importance of this area I just spent the time to get it right. I was also careful to remove an extra .01″ at the hinges so I don’t have to trim them as I did the rudder hinges.

Quite some thought has gone into how to do this trough layup. I’m going to add one extra ply of carbon at the hinges and the layup itself will be on foil and in stages. I’m leaving out the inboard section at the push rod entry until after I have the hardware in place.

Probably another day of prep at least still to come. Meanwhile I’ve been gathering materials for the ailerons and doing a lot of weight calculations. I’ll add the results to this log later. I’ve also chased up taper pins and a matching reamer to replace some of the AN3 control bolts. No slop is the goal!

Depth check for hinges

Sanded clean and marked out

Both wings now ready

Cutting these ailerons out is easy. I learned how doing the rudders. The long cuts are less than 5 minutes if you just drag the top edge of the saw next to the hot glued aluminium angle.

The hard part is knowing where to cut…getting those lines in the right place. The plans positioning is all very well in a perfect world. It would have helped too if I’d kept the B.L.55.5 line clearer on the wing and that they were perfect.

I decided that the important thing was that the ailerons were the same size and in the same position on both wings. That kept me busy for a lot more than the 5 hours I have given this in the log. I even went to the airport to check my flying plane’s ailerons as my first measurements seemed odd. I also decided just to do what the plans say and no fancy inline with the airflow cuts. It was tricky enough as it is and with a hinge at the top, a cut line not at right angles might be a problem.

All said and done I checked and rechecked and checked again, cut them out and all is well in the world.

The long cut

The side cut

Aileron appears

Time to flox in those inserts. After alodining them overnight I checked the matched set for their respective holes. Two were just marginal length so I ground them down and used my alodine pen to recover the ends. Then I checked the lengths yet again. OK. I’m happy.

I again cleaned all the holes, mixed epoxy and coated both the holes and the inserts with pure stuff, then mixed some wet flox and did the deed (inserted the12 inserts). Next up was to bolt the wings together (with my waxed bolts and nuts) which took a couple of hours. Yes it is something I need to address with a special set of jigs and tools. For now the wings are together. Wooooww!

I then re-leveled the wings in incidence waterline and leveled the CS spar. More herding cats …so what I did was encourage the wings into the correct position with foam blocks and my jigs. Where it will be when they are relaxed I do not know. The water line started out spot on but drifted as I tweaked. The wings have a lot of flex in them of course too. The incidence was my #1 priority. I’ve done my best to get things level while the flox was curing. Not that there was much give in the system.

I then sat at the airfield for another 3 hours with the wings under a heat tent to cure that tiny bit of epoxy and flox. I turned off the heaters overnight but came in the next day and got them both on again for a full day. The leftover epoxy passes the scratch test. I’ll leave it another day anyway and then we are good to go for the next step.

Ready to insert

Incidence looking good

Heat tents with my flying plane in the background

Another really long day. I was unhappy with my drilled holes and wouldn’t use that drill bit I had sorted out again. OK maybe a hole saw after all. I’d do some test drillings next time rather than my quick try out in a block of wood.

I had another set of inserts machined up with a slightly thicker O.D. on the pilot a few days ago. While I didn’t need a press fit, it was a little sloppy. So with that sorted the holes needed a very gentle touch up with the dremel sanding drum and I had a reasonable fit. This was all late last night.

This morning I fitted and trimmed the inserts for each hole. 0.10″ short is OK but anything too long and my bolts won’t do up tightly. Not an option. In fact when I got home I ground off a further .05″ just to be sure and I will check the length again before gluing them in tomorrow.

As you see in Pic 2 the inserts lined up, in fact all twelve did and the bolts all did up nicely. It was a nightmare putting them in. I am going to have to make some special tools and jigs, what a crazy design. On the plus side it seems the holes matched and I was able to get a socket on all the bolts and I’m through all the hard points… so we are all good where it matters here. It lined up. How about that. 🙂

The wing incidence was 0.02 degrees instead of 0.00 however it was the same for both wings which was important. I tried it without the wings being supported and 0.00 was looking closer until the jig holding the CS Spar succumbed to the long moment of the wings moving.

Enough to say I feel OK about setting it up and floxing in the inserts for real. Water line (W.L. 17.4) looked pretty close too although a supported and unsupported wing are slightly different.

I’ve just alodined the inserts which each have their own little baggie. Nearly 11pm, must be dinner or at least lunch time?

Fitting inserts

Trial bolt together

Alodine those inserts

A major step today getting the fuselage to the hangar where I have the wings for a bit longer.

Special thanks to Darren C. who did the car and all the knots. I have no clue how to tie things onto a trailer. We hired the unit which was 6′ wide by 12′ A perfect fit. The canard was tied to the top rail which is not only very secure but mildly terrifying. Darren does the knot thing very well.

Now I have the wings, canard, spar and fuselage at a hangar and about a month to get it sorted. I also have my flying Long-EZ in the same hanger and have to get the annual done and sorted out with the licensed guys there as well. My workroom meanwhile needs a complete reset before the parts return. So I have three projects now and about 4 weeks to run at most.

At the end I should have the wings on the fuselage and the canard fitted. Wish me luck!

Oh… of course these hours don’t really count in the build, its like time reading plans or sourcing materials, just stuff that needs doing.

Escape the building

Road trip

At the airport – where are my wings?

Today was ‘Drill Five Holes Day’ as I’d done one yesterday… or it would have been drill 6 holes day. See the previous log for the drill bit details. OK maybe I will use a hole saw next time. I probably averaged around 1hr:15 mts per hole and used a lot of pressure and a very low drill speed.

Pic 1 shows drilling in action. Note the rings on the drill bit. I drew these on so I could see what sort of slow progress I was making. You can also see an air outlet. I had the compressor running and used this to keep the fiberglass cool while I was drilling. If its too hot to leave your finger on it… then you may have probably reached the TG of the resin… or if you like… it will go soft. So I’d stop every 30 seconds or so to clear the drill bit and check for how hot things were getting. This did nothing to speed up the process and if it felt hot I’d just stop and blast with air for a while.

I also roughed up the drill guides I’d made and used bondo and set this up as the outside guide to keep my drill straight. The stuff really sets fast with excess hardener and I used a lot of tape and bonded to that. It works really well and easy to get off later. I used a little drilling oil too but I’m not sure if it helped much.

Where my bit came through on the hard points I got a slight delam on the thin outside plies as I pushed through. I’ll clean it all up later, easy job.

Overall I have those 6 holes done. AND I am happy to have that ‘little’ job completed…. Next up the collars need to be trimmed and then floxed in place with the wings aligned correctly.

Drilling

More drilling

Access holes in spar

The 5/8″ drill bit I have for the wing bolt holes is a bit of a saga. I couldn’t find anything in Australia even close to what was needed and ended up importing a couple of bits from the USA. When they arrived they were pull bits …not pushers as I needed. Long story short I had the plans spot face drill shaft modified. The last 20 mm or so was turned down, the bit inserted and then a sleeve was loctited on so I had a 1/4″ pilot again. The pic 1 image explains it somewhat.

I have to use a screwdriver setting on my drill and set it backwards too for drilling. As it turns out the bit is slightly oversized above 5/8″ so after a lot of trouble I may have to get new insets made as the ones I have might be too sloppy in the holes. I need to drill them out first to find out as a little flox is a good thing and a press fit is not called out for in the plans. That said …sloppy is not good either!

First up I have to drill those 6 holes and you can see in pic 3 its lined up and good to go.

That said… as a preview to the next log entry I have drilled one hole so far and it took forever. I hope I can get the other 5 in one day! A report will follow.

Modified drill bit

The bit close up …just testing

5/8″ bit in place inside the spar box

I rechecked all the levels again today and it took a few of hours. I think I have it now so time to secure the wings for drilling.

Given I’ll be pushing pretty hard with the drill, in a positive way, I made a couple of push back jigs as you see in pic 1. Now things are leveled I do not want movement. I also used bondo per plans and a few mixing sticks as shown in Pic 2.

To keep the drill level I’d made up as set of aluminium guides with 1/4″ holes and bondoed them in place so that the long 1/4″ drill was level and square from the outside to correspond with the pre drilled spar holes.

Once happy I got to it and the six 1/4″ holes all the way through were done. The relief in seeing them come out at the correct place on the wing side was significant. I know I have it all lined up as best I can. It was still good to see the drill bit all the way through and somewhere near the center of the hardpoints.

Wing push back

Everything level and sequred

Drilling wing pilot holes

Another weeks work with a few days off and interuptions. Having done a trial setup, now to do it all for real. First up was to set the spar to the floor so it will not move when I set the wings to it and when a drill is being pushed through.

Pic 1 shows things as level as I can make them at the CS Spar. Both top and side. If you blink the side level goes to 89.95 then back again. It is pretty consistent at 90 though. I put gaffer tape on the floor and spar and then set up a timber frame with lots of bondo and a few screws. You get the idea from pic 2 so that when pushing the drill from the front it has that timber beam at the rear. The grey mats are to protect my knees, a day on bare concrete sorts out the need for that.

With the spar really secure, it made lining up the wings a lot easier. Pic 3 shows a strap in place, just secure but not too tight and with lots of protective foam especially at the trailing edge. I discovered that the hardpoint flox pad on the left wing needed a sand to get it nice and flush. Well I had made a wedge but it turned out this was hardly necessary and most of it was sanded away with maybe a thin washers worth left. That was a couple of hours last night working well after dark. I though I had this wrong but not so, it was pretty close now we are down to nearly ‘drill time’. The center point lines on the Hard Points are a bit closer than I first thought too.

I spent a while with the water level (BL17.4) at the 4 places to minimise the spar to wing mismatch. Its pretty good on the right but a good 0.15″ out on the left. This will need some filler mainly inboard and should not be noticeable in weight or profile. I know this is all crazy overkill for what should take a day or so. I hope your build goes a bit quicker at this stage than mine.

My drill bit finally came from the USA BUT need modification as they were not what I thought I was ordering. This will be worth a log entry on its own! I’m getting closer to drilling this thing out.

Spar level

Secured to the floor

Wing wrap

A few more sessions and I had my bolt hole positions marked out. After all this, the variations from the plans were no more than .015″ at any point. I could probably have just drilled these holes when I had the spar at home on the bench. BUT now I understand things a lot better and I’m feeling OK about where the holes are and the way forward.

It is quite satisfying to have these 1/4″ pilot done. I can set the spar and wings up for the real drill out now. Despite my best efforts I still needed to make minor corrections in the drilling. There is no perfect flat surface for the jig although another week and I could have devised something.

That said the holes are in a good place, I drilled up from 1/16″ so the drill part was easy through the metal. Once I got to my long 3/8 bit it was much easier to see if I was parallel to the spar and by the time I did the 1/4″ its pretty close.

I might open up the outside holes which are just guides, make a metal 1/4″ guide and when my metal cutting spotface drills arrive from the USA I’ll use these long shafts to get my drill really square to the job and bondo the guides onto the outside of the spar. With the inside hole pretty good, I think this might give me the square hole (if you pardon the term) that I want.

Next job is to really secure the spar and wing combination for the 5/8″ drill out.

Drilling jig in position

Nice and easy to see

I’m through!

Once the spar was at 90 degrees and zero on the top and the wings incidents were also at zero I could look at the wing spar join for a nice flush fit.

Of course nothing is qute perfect without a tweak on my build. There was a slight gap as the angles of the hardpoints didn’t quite meet. Now this might be my spar jig being imperfect or back to the FC1 join which I suspect again. Maybe it was the buildup of glass on the hardpoint reinforcing UNI straps. Possibly all of the above.

I decided to make thin flox ramps so at least my drilling out process will be nice and snug for the fit. Pic one shows flox in place with plenty of grey tape and some peel ply to help the flox sit smoothly. Well it was a two day cure in the hangar and then I found I wanted just a touch more flox for thickness so it was another batch and another couple of days.

That sanded flat OK, or rather I had a bit of a wedge happening and the wings lined up just that little bit better. Of course it was a couple more days just doing the lining up and sanding.

Flox setup

‘B’ Join flush

‘A’ Join flush

This is the Archimedes water level in place. I need to check that all the water lines or rather W.L.17.4 is the same on both wings and at each end. So thats four places. I got some plastic hose , two tee fittings and two right angles for the ends.

I also made up some very secure stands so they wouldn’t fall over and then extended the height so a spill was a lot less likely if I was moving one level around. I also spent some time getting the air bubbles out… another couple of days were soaked up.

This works really well and is the third item that must be correct. Incidence, sweep and this level. Now I found as suspected that my wings were not perfectly aligned with the spar once the correct levels were obtained.

This is just a juggling process to see where it should sit for the least amount of filler later. The right wing is pretty good but the left is about .015″ to .2″ out. If you hadn’t read this log you may never have known 😉 I can only do the averages but more to the point I need to see if my wing bolt holes should be moved up of down a touch to allow for this. That’s the purpose of the exercise at this stage.

4 levels joined

Wing tip level

Wing root level