With the wing skins riveted, there really wasn't much left to do. The two tasks that I focused on this week, were riveting the hinges for ailerons and flaps, and finishing my landing lights. The first task was fairly straightforward, test fit the hinge by fastening it the wingskin, making sure that everything is in more or less perfect alignment. Then replace most of the clecos with loose rivets, and finally use the rivet gun to pull the rivet, tightening the fit thus making the clecos unnecessary. You remove the few remaining clecos and fit rivets in their spots Badaboom Badabing, hinge riveted.
The remaining steps of the landing light installation are, cutting a hole for the light to escape the wing, fitting a lens to retain the proper shape in the leading edge, and installing the lens holding hardware. This week I put the dremel to the metal and cut a hole in the leading edge. You would think it to be fairly straightforward, and for the most part you would be right. The Duckworks landing light kit, that came with my project, provides a template for the shape and position of the hole in order for the light to remain centered. The template has alignment instructions on it, that make lining it up properly a simple task of measuring and taping. With the template affixed, you then traced the appropriate shape onto the skin using a sharpie. The left wing was already marked by the previous owner, so all I had to do was double check the alignment and begin to cut.
The tool of choice was a dremel with a cutting wheel on it. A dremel is roughly cylinder shaped with a power cord on one end, and a spinning attach point on the other. This makes it very versatile as you can use any one of a nearly endless supply of cutting/grinding heads. The one I used for this task was a about 1" radius, very thin but hard, wheel perfectly suited for cutting precisely through sheet metal.
Using the dremel is easy as long as you do one important thing, keep it stable. If the tool is well supported, then cutting will be a breeze.
After the complex shape of the leading edge was cut through. I was left with jagged, sharp, and uneven edges. The solution was to use a common type of file called a half round file (it has one curved side, and one flat side.) and a rat tail file. (named because it is shaped like a long straight rat tail.) Carefully modulating the pressure and speed of the file controlled where and how much it cut from the metal. After around an hour of filing, and checking, and filing, and checking, I determined that the hole was how I wanted it. I smoothed out any imperfections with the abrasive scotch brite pad, and admired the clean and even hole.
Next I will be working on fitting the lens and mounting the lens retaining hardware, and getting some pictures of the process!
Thank you all so much to everyone who has supported me!
Mr John
Paul Shadwick
Stan Whitfield
Ron Sipple
Ralph and Joyce Shultz
Paul and Beth Duff
Paul Hockin
Nicholette Shultz
Gordon Fern
Anon Anon
Jeannette Shultz
Mike David
Jonathan and Julia Wolfe
Jon Palmstrom
Laurie Burns
Donna Mickel
Dana Baker
Mrs Nadine
Eric Johnson
Tammy Reap Hayes
Jeff Shultz
Brandon Lenart
WP Marsh
Michael Couillard
Mr Anonymous
Joe And Judy Green
Mrs Brenda
Mrs Cathy
Paul and Vickie Laberge
Judy and Roger Kemmerle
The purpose of this blog is to document and share my experience of building and later flying an airplane. In the first portion, I will thank all the wonderful people who donated to me. Then in the second section I will post a building update, hopefully every 3-4 days ,explaining what I have done in detail and with pictures. Finally in the third and last section, I will post my flying adventures, and any maintenance I do. Thank you or your support and interest, I am pumped to be executing this project.