Rethinking the pitot mast fit - 8 hours

After some time off from the plane building with so much other stuff going on. These last few days, I'm feeling like I need to jump back into it. Ive really been thinking about how to mount the pitot mast and support it. After all the test fitting that I have done, I realized that it is not going to work to line up the support bracket with the rivets in the wing rib. It's either too close of too far away. I will have to abandon my original method (sorta) and head in a direction similar to what JRichichi @ Vans Airforce has posted about the method he used to mount his SafeAir1 pitot mast. The difference being that I want to rivet the support brace to the wing for the entire span.

I wanted to form the support brace (bracket). Looking at the methods shown by the "Sportplane Construction Techniques" Book by Tony Bingelis. I can easily make a form out of oak and used them as bending blocks to form the aluminum. So, I when to work making the oak blocks. Then, using 0.025" material. I began to make by first bend.



It came out really nice.

Next piece that I need to bend is another angle support bracket for the pitot mast itself. This bracket gets riveted to the pitot mast, and screwed to the support brace. The idea is that if you ever need to remove the mast for some reason. Three rivets that hold the mast at the spar get drilled out, and two screws accessible from behind get removed and the mast will be able to be removed, without much hassle. To make the pitot mast support. I chose 0.032" material. Bit thicker.

Once it was bent, I cut it to clear the welds on the back side of the mast.


I then fit the assembly to the wing.

Match drilled and deburred Ailerons - 4 hours

Pickup where I left off yesterday, I match drilled all the stiffeners to the aileron skins. But the part that I am dreading is the deburring of the skins and stiffeners. A very slow and painful process....I plugged away. Again, Netflix to the rescue to help pass the time. After some time it was all done, and then before dimpling I scuffed everything up with scotchbrite.

I then started dimpling the stiffeners

One little slip up with the pneumatic squeezer resulted in a bad dimple....I will need to replace one stiffener. Doh!!!

Preping the Aileron skins - 3 hours

I'm battling with motivation to build as work is so busy and I have a lot of yard work to do. I managed to get myself working on the Ailerons. First I need to devinyl the aileron skins. Mindless work, but it past quickly thanks to Netflix.

Then I was able to mark and cleco the stiffeners to the skins.

Initial fitting the pitot mast - 3.5 hours

I was finally ready to begin fitting the pitot mast. I had already settled on a SafeAir 1 mast some time ago and had purchased one. over the last few months I was deciding on where to put it. Considering I need a heater pitot, I need to make sure there is room for the heat controller. I finally settled on a position between two ribs outboard of the aileron bellcrank. The tricky part will be to build a support stiffener to help secure the mast between the two ribs as the wing skin is pretty thin at that area.
I began playing with the fit on the spar.




Looks like I will have to watch the clearance with the spar rivets.




Now at this point I could see how things were going to work out. More in terms of the rivet lines. One thing that I wanted to do was have the horizontal rivet line, in line with the rib/skin rivets. 
Another item of concern was making sure that the ribs were going to be in the right place to make the stiffener. My solution was to make a template based on the skin. I took a piece of scrap and similar to the method used in the spar doubler, I match drilled the rivet holes from the skin.



Now that I had the correct placement of the rib holes, I now could ensure that my rivet line going across would line up with the rib rivets.



Here it is fit into place.


 I was sure to check, check and re-check that the mast center line was correct and perpendicular with the spar.

 
 No, I needed to place the mast, so I needed to cut a template to trace onto the scrap. I didn't want to use the paper template just yet, so I used a piece of cardboard.


 It makes a perfect outline when you press the mast on it.

Now that I had the outline, I could trace it onto the scrap piece and find the correct fit/location.

It sits a little forward as the mast frame makes contact with the spar/skin rivets. I may need to either move the mast back slightly, or simply remove a little material from the mast plate to clear the spar rivet shop heads


I haven't drilled the spar holes into the pitot mast just yet, and I'm thinking on when its best to drill those holes.

Fitted Aileron and flap braces- 4 hours

Next step needed was to fit the aileron and aileron and flap braces to the wings. I figured that this would be a very quick step, but after initial fitting it was clear that I had to file down some edges as the pieces wouldn't fit.

Here the aileron brace interferes with the left wing aileron bracket.

 I took out the file and went to work.

The right side is very close too, so I filed it down.




The left wing flap brace needs a little bit of tailoring to fit with the spar doubler.

All good to go to start match drilling holes.

Riveted the Aileron Hinges to the Wings - 6 hours

I was battling between wanting to get the aileron hinges on and holding off. I do not like setting rivets through thick material purely because if you mess up, it's murder getting them out. I finally worked up the nerve to give it a go.


I used the gun and bar on the inboard hinge. Everything was going well. I used the pneumatic squeezer to set most of the rivets on the outboard hinge.





And then the other wing.


And then disaster stuck. I notice on the first wing that I had mashed the factory head on one of the rivets with the rivet set. It happened because there is very tight clearance between the shop head of the one rivet and the rivet set. So ultimately I choose to drill out the rivet and try it again. So drilled of the head, and do you think it would punch out....heck no. So I had to drill it out. this ended up with not a perfect hole...not bad, but not perfect. Tried to set another rivet, but it folded over. Crap...Here we go. Again, drilling off the head, it wouldn't punch out. Had to drill it. this time the hole was just not right....sigh. I have to go to an AN5 rivet. So I drilled it and then tried to buck the AN5 rivet. And it began to fold....CRAP. so I stopped. Of course I noticed that I put a smiley in the work. Oh man this is going downhill fast. So, I dug out my dremel with the buffing wheel and tried to smooth out the smiley. I then spot primed the area. Dug out the alligator squeezer and tried to set another AN5 rivet. It set....not perfect, but good enough. This was a very stinging experience and my stomach was a bit in my throat.


I sent pictures to an AME friend and he agreed, its not perfect but it will do just fine.
Ahh...Tough day in the shop!!

Preped Aileron Parts - 5 hours

Big day of little progress. I cleaned up all the edges of the Aileron stiffeners, ribs, spar and the flap and aileron braces. Lots of work to be done. I started on the stiffeners first and ran them through the sanding station with 120grit paper to get them to the right size.  Next I ran them through the 3Mwheel and they turned out perfect. There is a lot of stiffeners so it takes time.

Next I used the file to break all the edges of the braces, ribs and spars by sliding it along the edge and eventually evening out the edge. I used a round file to even out the round lightening holes. It goes fairly quick, but it leaves sharp edges. So a quick run through with the 3m wheels makes them smooth. Again...sounds quick, but in actuality, lots of time was spend on them.