Mark' S TALL rib order

As the third week in July rolled around most of the prep work on the ribs was complete leaving whole days open for construction. What a joy for Mark after the tedium of the prep work.

He began by attaching all of the main ribs followed by the rear spar.  Next, the nose ribs were attached and proved to be a tad more tricky than the main ribs. Having less room in which to work caused mark to use the hand puller more often than not. He also had the first failed rivet with the shaft shearing early. Mark carefully removed and replaced it, not wanting to cause any extra problems. By the time the first major day of construction was over we had the skeleton of the left (his) wing complete!

The construction of the wing went so smoothly that Mark decided to work on the stall warning which consists of a microswitch sandwiched between two aluminum pieces and a bunch of washers.  The hundred plus degree temperature and the hours of sweating in the garage are certain factors that lead to Mark bitting off more than he could chew for the day and he made a slight error that set construction back. What error was Made? While countersinking one of the pieces, he totally butchered one of the holes. Immediately Mark came inside and was on line ordering a replacement piece. Needless to say, he called it a day and went about rearranging the garage so we could get Butzi (the car) back inside. This took a bit of work, but we finally found the correct orientation for the workbenches, motorcycles, wing rack, wing, and Porsche. It's a bit of a tight fit, but it works.

The following day (7/21) was a light construction day as Mark was waiting for the new stall warning piece. He worked on the terminal blocks that form the electrical connections at the wing root. As usual, a bit of trimming, deburring, sanding, and priming. He spent the rest of the work day organizing the wing skins; taking them out of the crate they were in and separating the left skins from the right. We moved the right skins into one of the bedrooms while using the wing rack in the garage to store the left skins. Mark went out and purchased a new wire stripper and crimper to facilitate the electrical work that would need to be done.

The stall warning piece came in on Friday morning. Mark began by working on the wires, putting connectors and ring terminals on the ends. Once he had completed this job he came in from the garage with the biggest grin on his face effusively proclaiming "Wow! I love the new tools! I am going to go back and redo all of the crimped connectors from the Empennage kit when I get a chance using them." He prepped the stall piece and then reassembled the stall warning. The skin was clecoed on to check the fit before snugging everything up. 

The last job of the day was to clean everything up in preparation for putting on some wing skins on Saturday. The plan was to have Mark's dad come over early in the morning to give Mark some much appreciated help. Mark's goal was to have the wing in its rack before heading to Oshkosh (sans wingtip as we needed some materials to finish the wingtip light assembly).