April 12, 2007 - Rear Spar Drilling |
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It's great having the wings attached to the fuselage. | ||||||
Before I could drill the rear spars to the fuse, I had to make sure the
wings were straight with each other and at the proper incidence. I
hung a plumb bob from the inboard and outboard of each wing and made
sure they were aligned along a laser line. I had to push the
outboard edge of each wing aft a little to get the plumb bob all one the
line.
Then I cut a piece of particle board to 3" and used it to support a
steel angle as shown below. The angle is supposed to be absolutely
horizontal and amazingly enough, the SmartTool showed 0.0 degrees!
I did the same thing at the middle and outboard of the wing. I
guess if the wing had any twist, you SmartTool would tell the tale.
But my wings appear straight, as all the readings were either 0.0 or
0.1.
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And 0.0 on the left wing root. | ||||||
I also measured the height of each wing tip -- they were equidistance.
Finally I measured from each wing tip to a point on the aft fuselage.
Equidistance. Bottom line, the wings are straight and have the
proper incidence. It's time to drill the rear spars.
I had bought this drill jig device some time ago. You use it to
keep your drill bit perpendicular to the work.
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Apparently, it's critical that the center of the hole in the rear spar is at least 5/8" from the edges. There's very little room to play with; you pretty much have to have the hole in the absolute center of the rear spar area. I was very careful at this point. This is one task that you simply have to do right the first time. | ||||||
I drilled the right side with my 12" long 1/8" bit, using my drill jig to keep the bit perpendicular. | ||||||
Right in the center! So far, so good. I did the left side the same way. The next step is to widen the hole to 5/16". My electric drill is too big, though, so I'm going to have to come up with another solution. Either get longer drill bits or use a different drill. | ||||||