Family Project Continues at the Factory - Day 3

This is a continuation (See the first post for Day One and Two)


Day #3: First job on Wednesday morning was drilling through all the pilot holes on the main wing. Generous use of clecos ensured that all parts stayed in place for this quick process: 20 minutes with two drills going…

Next came work on the wing-root skin. This required a little more finesse, but again, the pre-cut aluminum skins with pre-drilled holes make lay-out and positioning very straight forward.

Any trimming of the skins (below) was quickly accomplished using hand-held snips (done here by Lon); Three sets of hands made for easy holding, drilling and cleco-ing. Not having to switch tools really speeds things up!

Wrapping the leading edge skin around the wing-root area required a bit more finesse as the area cannot easily be strapped down. This is one task where the extra hands were really welcome; not just speeding things up but making the job a breeze, whereas doing this alone would be much more challenging…

Here is the fully formed and positioned wing root area (bottom of wing facing up):

Next came the wing tip area: Positioning the new one-piece fiberglass Hoerner tips. The finished part just slides right into place; the pilot-holes in the pre-drilled skins again make it really easy to just drill and cleco into place.

There was no need for three people to work on installing the fuel tank, so as one continued with that, the other two started work on the second wing.  Here, Lon shows how the welded aluminum tank (15 gal) will fit inside the wing while Barry prepares the fly-cutter to drill the hole for the fuel sender…

Nick who provides “tech support” at Zenair here holds a fuel tank while Barry cuts the hole where the fuel sender will be installed. This aircraft will be equipped with the long-range tanks (total fuel = 30 gallons).

Assembling the second wing skeleton with clecos took just a few minutes. Brothers Val and Lon are putting their freshly-acquired wing-building skills to good use. At the end of this third day in the shop, you can see wing number one in the back-ground (below, right) as wing number two is taking shape.

Continued… See Day Four

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