Stabilator Forward Spar Assemblies Part 4 (1.5)

1.5 hours

Picking up where I left off yesterday, went ahead and riveted the RH forward spar assembly together.

Here's the completed part:

After the RH spar was done, I had to repeat the process of cleaning up and deburring the LH side.  once that was done I riveted the LH spar.

Both spar assemblies complete!

The next step will be assembling the stabilator structures.  I realized that some of the joints call for flush rivets, which need dimpled holes, so I went ahead and ordered the Super Simple Dimple Die from Sonex.  After about five minutes of research I decided that would be the cheapest and easiest way to dimple the holes, and I'll need it later anyway for leading edge skins.

Stabilator Forward Spar Assemblies Part 3 (2)

2 hours

I picked up a #12 drill bit from the hardware store after work today, so when I got home I started by enlarging the 3/16" holes I drilled yesterday to attach the clips to the forward spar assembly.  It hardly removed any material, but now the bolts now actually fit through the holes... but it's still a tight fit!

With that task done, I took the clips back off, stashed the hardware for now, and attached the leading edge rib (SNX-T04-06) to each forward clip.

I installed two of the four rivets on each one, but the two closer to the angle were not accessible by either my hand riveter or my pneumatic one.  So I'll have to figure out how to pull those rivets later.

For now I just left them like this and put them back on the shelf until later.

Next I took my RH spar cap and channel back apart and set about cleaning up and deburring both parts for the last time.   The channel didn't take long, but the cap took quite a bit of filing, sandpapering, and Scotchbrite wheel-ing.

This doesn't look much different than it did yesterday, but a lot of work was done since then!  This is the RH forward spar assembly ready for rivets.  I ran out of time today, so I will rivet them tomorrow and then start on the LH assembly.

Stabilator Forward Spar Assemblies Part 2 (3.5)

3.5 hours

I got a reply from Sonex this morning, and I'm on the right track after all.  Based on the wording in the Waiex revision log, I thought there would be an updated T10 drawing to depict the new spar cap (T11-03R/L) in the assembly, but the updated spar cap drawing is actually the only new document.  So I'm good to continue, just acknowledging that the forward spar assembly will look slightly different from the drawing since the bend in the spar cap no longer lines up with the clipped corner of the spar channel.  The locating dimensions remain the same, so there's nothing else I need to do differently.

Anyway, back to work!!!

Today I worked on drilling the many holes needed to assemble the forward spars.  After carefully locating the spar cap on top of the channel, I drilled through all the laser cut pilot holes in the spar cap and through the channel, clecoing the holes together as I went along.

I found that my the #40 drill bit gets clogged up with aluminum after a few holes and then the point does not penetrate the channel very well (it updrills the pilot hole easily, but has trouble getting started on the sheet metal below).  I started with my cordless drill, but after clogging up a few bits I gave the drill press a try, and that made it much easier.  I'm going to have to find a way to de-clog my bits though or I'm going to go through a lot of them!

Once the #40 pilot holes were drilled all the way through, it was easy to updrill to #30 with the handheld drill.

Once the RH assembly was all drilled to #30, I repeated everything on the LH side.

The next task was to assemble the two small clips that are bolted to the end of each spar assembly.  These four aluminum angle parts come pre-built as part of the kit.  The T10-6 clips are simple 90° angle, but the T10-5's have been opened up to 100°.  My T10-5L was perfect, but my T-10-5R was off by a few degrees.

It was easy enough to adjust the angle using a clamp and an adjustable wrench, as demonstrated in this video.  Next time I will use a few more layers of tape on my wrench though.  I just covered the jaws with one layer of duct tape, and it still left some small marks on the part.  I'll be able to clean them up with the Scotch Brite wheel later anyway.

Once that angle was fixed, I clamped and drilled the clips to each spar assembly.  My clecos aren't long enough to grab all four layers at once, so once I got the pilot holes drilled I just checked one clip at a time as I updrilled from #40 all the way up to 3/16" holes.  These parts will be attached with AN3 bolts.  The 3/16" holes are a really tight fit, so I might enlarge them later to #12.  But I don't have a #12 bit on hand so I'll deal with that later!

Starting on Forward Spar Assemblies (0.5)

0.5 hours

Today I decided to take a break from cleaning up the forward spar caps, and started laying out the forward spar assemblies.

At first I was a little disturbed because my spar caps look significantly different from the drawing.  I thought I had seriously misplaced the bend on both of them!  Then I remembered there had been a revision to the WIX-T11 drawing which moved the bend centerline.  After looking up the revised version on the Sonex website (Link), I determined my spar caps were right on after all.

However, the WIX-T10 drawing that I have (rev A) still shows the old spar caps, so it's different from what I have.  I emailed Sonex just to confirm I'm still locating the spar cap and channel correctly, and to find out how I can get the updated (rev B) T10 drawing.  It's Sunday so I don't expect a reply today, but I'm going to wait until I hear from them before I drill any holes in the spar channel.

I also spent a little time organizing and setting up my work area, and it's looking pretty good now!  In a future post I'll show my setup and the tools I've been using.

Finishing stabilator ribs and spar caps (1.5)

1.5 hours

Today I rebuilt the last stabilator rib (actually the very first one I built) which I had done kind of badly back when I first started. I also managed to straighten out the one rib that got a tiny bit bent while in storage. So now I have all the stabilator ribs done (as long as they all fit and I don't have to redo any).



Next I started cleaning up the spar caps. They come laser cut with pre-drilled pilot holes, but that leaves a lot of serrations on the edges and flashing around the holes. The bending brake also left some marks, so I'm working on buffing them out. I got a good start but there's still a bit more to do.




Once the spar caps are all done I'll be back to where I left off, which is assembling the internal structure of the stabilators!

Bending the forward spar caps (aka hockey sticks) (0.5)

0.5 hours

I read about a few people having problems bending these parts accurately, especially with the latest revision that moved the bend line to a kind of awkward angle.  So rather than spend too much time thinking about it, I just brought them to work to use some real equipment!

Here's the bend line laid out on each part.

This definitely beats my little arbor press.

Done!

Spar channels (2.5)

2.5 hours

Finished forming the spar channels and drilled a bunch of holes

Completed spar channels with pilot holes.

This is about what the stabilator structure will look like when it's together.  This is the right side.

I can tell this is going to take a lot of messing around to get everything aligned nice and straight.  I'll probably need some more clamps too!

Alright I guess this is officially my first goof.  I realized once I looked at how everything goes together that I should not have drilled the middle hole in the second row of holes shown here.  Since they were rows of three everywhere else on this part, I just mindlessly drilled three there as well.  Whoops!  It doesn't seem like a very big deal, but I'll have to make sure that it won't cause any problems later.  Worst case I'll have to redo these two spar channels, and I have enough channel stock left over, so I'm not too depressed about it.

Note: I asked Sonex about this extra hole and they said it won't affect anything.  Problem solved!

Stabilator spar channels & root ribs (3.5)

3.5 hours

Not too exciting... More c-channel stuff. Got the root ribs done and the spar channels mostly done! 

Cutting channels to length and bending flanges.

Cutting the ends of the spar channels.