Wingin' It

Mark's dad came over the morning of July 23 to help with skinning the wing. Mark had already spent an hour and a half prepping which included using the soldering iron to open the rivet holes and edges on the outside from the plastic as well as removing the plastic from the underside of the skin. All edges were deburred with the file and then the edging tool and finally, the holes were deburred with the speed deburring tool. It has been such an ungodly hot summer that it was 82 in the garage when he started at 8 in the morning, 85 by the time Dad got here around ten, and close to 90 by the time we were done. Remember these temperature are WITH an air conditioner. CRAZY.

It took no time for Mark and his dad to get back into the groove that they had when working on the empennage. Mark mainly chased holes to clean them out, inserting the rivets that Dad would then pull. Mind you, it is a BUNCH of rivets! All in all, it took them a good hour and a half to finish the inbord skin at which point, they were both dripping sweat on the shiny aluminum and Dad decided to call it a day. Mark came inside to cool down a bit but then decided it would make sense to get the other two lower skins ready for tomorrow so he went back out for a couple more hours before retiring to the pool.

The next day, Mark was out early and got a quick start and was able to get the outboard skin on before Dad made it over. By that time, it was around 10:30 and they quickly got to work on the center, overlapping skin. Ron (Mark's brother) and Lannie (his wife) were in town to drop Hunter and Ryan (our nephews) off for the upcoming trip to Oshkosh; and since no trip to Austin is complete without pulling a few rivets we had them do a couple each. See the photo documentation below showing exactly which rivets they pulled. Good fun!

After completing the underside of the wing, we flipped it over and riveted the first few rows of holes leaving the last undone as the top skin slides under the bottom skin into the J channel. The last step of the day was to put the flaperon hinge brackets on, sliding them through the slots in the lower skin. This was a really tough job as there was very little room to use even the hand pulled with the offset rivet tool. After Mark got the hang of it, things began to get easier; however complacency crept in and he pulled a bad rivet! It was not firmly against the skin and needed to be removed. The problem was, as tough as it was to rivet with the limited access, it would be twice as hard to drill out! On top of that, he was hot and cranky and clearly beginning to make mistakes.

Dad left in search of an offset drill that could fit in the space that he thought he had at home. While he was gone Mark thought about how to drill the rivet out and then just decided to fit the other bracket while being super careful. It went on with no trouble! He finished it at the same time he had the idea to use the Dremel with the flexible extension when he heard Dad pull up. Dad had not found the drill at home but he did find one at Harbor Freight. Mark went to work and within 3 minutes, had the rivet out and replaced! It is all about the right tools!

While Dad had been off looking for tools Mark's mom came over with the nephews, Peanut (her dog; our dog's sister), and Schlotzkys (sandwiches) so after the mistake was corrected, it was pool time! The next day Mark, his dad, Hunter, Ryan and myself were off for a week in Oshkosh.