The 2017 Edmonton Airshow

I worked the EAA booth at the Edmonton Airshow. Not much to report other than it was a fun filled weekend of airplanes.

Prep'd the bottom outboard wing skins - 3 hours

I prep'd and primed the outboard wing skins. Same process as before. Clean, scuff, wipe, acid etch, MEK, prime! Fun Fun!!

Finished riveting the right bottom inboard wing skin - 5 hours

Slow and steady. Finished the inboard bottom wing skin on the right wing.

Started riveting the Right Inbard bottom wing skin - 7 hours

With having the "Feel" of the wing riveting dialed in. I started in on the right wing (bottom, inboard) skin. I was eager to get this done as its a bit tricky. I'm very much stiff and sore from all the contortion needed to reach all the rivets.

For some reason I found the right side, just a bit more tricky then the left.

One of the items that I needed to do was to use some proseal on a bent rib flange. I had bent this flange when clecoing the skin on earlier.

EDIT - Tip...This method doesn't work. The proseal doesn't hold well, and trying to reach in after to re-apply proseal or epoxy just makes a giant mess. The best method I found was to use a couple of layers of cardboard on the bucking bar when you go to set the rivet. The unset rivet pokes through the cardboard and allows the flange to press tight back to the mating surfaces. When you shoot the rivet. it's perfect!

Modifying the aileron stiffner - 1.5 hours

One of the items that I had discovered was that the aileron stiffener Van's provides in a service bulletin interferes with the rivets in two places on the rear spar. I had sent Van's an email asking if it was possible to file down the interfering part to allow access for a MK-319 rivet. In my particular instance they agreed with my workaround. So i went to work with the files to make the necessary space.

More riveting bottom left inboard wing skin - 4 hours

Slowly i've worked my way riveting. All along the rear spar for one bay, then up one rib towards the spar, then along the spar to the next rib. Then repeat. Ive used a string to hold up the skin to allow me to reach in. By the end of the evening I was done the skin. Took me much longer then it seems to take everyone else, but ultimately I am very happy with the results. 

Riveting Bottom Left inboard wing skin - 7 hours

Thankfully its a holiday today so I managed to put in a good day of riveting. As I've worked my way from the trailing edge to the leading edge of the skin on the root end of the wing. I was careful to position the bar so that it allowed me to set the new rivets on the spar flange, but not so far forward that it has interfered with previously set rivets. The trick I used was to tape a large popsicle stick to the bottom of the bucking bar and the stick is cut to length so that it acts like a position stop for the bar. I slide the bar up till the popsicle stick touches the spar...and the bar is set far back enough to set the new rivet.

I continued to rivet in the Vans suggested manner of the "L" shape. Its slow work as I checked each and every rivet.


I managed to set all the rivets in the 4 ribs