After letting my primer dry overnight, today's task was to assemble the rear spars and begin working on all the wing ribs.

In the picture below, I am riveting the rear spar reinforcement fork (W-707G) and rear spar doubler plate (W-707D) to the rear spar.  I cleco'd the holes that I did not want to put rivets in and then put some masking tape over the top so I didn't brain fart, remove the cleco and put a rivet in the wrong hole.  Drilling out rivets sucks.

Here is a picture of the rear spar center reinforcement (W-707E) riveted in place.  Almost wasn't worth the effort at this stage.

And finally, the spar end reinforcement (W-707F).  Note that this reinforcement has countersunk holes on the edge and one filled with a cleco at the bottom on the left.  Now, if there is a mistake to be made, I am going to make it.  If you look at the picture below, I countersunk one to many holes.  My extra countersunk hole is covered up at the bottom with a cleco.

Van's instruction's state: "Some of the holes in the W-707F are machine countersunk for flush rivets".  In the picture below, the rear outboard spar detail (i.e.: detail A) shows 5 holes that have flush rivets.  The four holes on the left, highlighted in yellow, are supposed to be countersunk so that the aileron hinge bracket assembly will sit flush on the spar end reinforcement (W-707F).  The hole that is highlighted in red calls out for a AN426AD4-7 rivet (flush rivet), however, it is the aileron hinge bracket that is to be countersunk and NOT the spar end reinforcement (W-707F).

You can't just look at the detail on this reinforcement to determine something simple like which holes get countersunk.  You also have to look at the isometric figure as well.  If I had spent more time looking at how the 3 layers of aluminum are put together, I might have caught the fact that the red shaded rivet did not require countersinking on the W-707F.  Minor mistake, I just hate making them.  What am I going to do when this airplane building gets hard??? 

We have a saying at work:  "If you are not getting in trouble, you are probably not doing much".  I guess that goes for airplane building too.  If you are not making mistakes, you probably aren't doing a whole lot of building.  I know, rhetorical nonsense...

Below is how my rear spar fork reinforcement looked after I set the rivets.  As far as I know, there is no hard set way to orient these AN470 rivets.  I usually orient them in a manner in which I can:

•  Place the factory head on the thinnest material.
•  Orient them consistently.  It looks like crap when some are oriented one way and some the other.  Just doesn't look professional.
•  Place the factory head on the side that can be seen after this thing is put together.

So what does this mean??  Nothing really, I guess the builder can orient them as they see fit.  I haven't found anything yet that says they have to be one way or another.  I am sure someone out there has an official and published criteria, I just haven't found it yet.

However, it should be noted, if I was going to redo this, I would probably place the factory head on the rear spar (forward side of rear spar) and the shop heads on the doublers / reinforcements...  When I begin riveting the ribs to the spars, I believe that I will be putting the factory heads on the rib flange side which means that the shop heads will be facing aft and on the same sides as the spar reinforcements.  This will break my 2nd bullet statement above.  DANG.  I guess I could just delete that criteria...

Once I got done with the rear spar, it was back to the main spar tie-down brackets.  Here I am getting ready to rivet the plate nuts to the spacers and tie-down bracket.

It must be the spring air as Tami washed her car AND MINE!!!  Thanks Dear, your the best! She told me to keep working on the plane. Sounds good to me!  Little did I know, how much she was going to help me today.  What's this going to cost me down the road?

Here is the tie-down brackets mounted to the wing spars.  I attached the tie-down brackets with an AN3-7A bolt, AN960-10 washer, AN960-10L  washer (nut side), and AN365-1032 nut.  I then torqued the nuts to 25 in-Ibs and applied torque seal to the nuts.  That doesn't seem like a lot of torque, but that is what Van's instructions call out in section 5 under "Nut and Bolt Torques".

Just a shot from another angle.  They look straight anyway.

GOT RIBS???? 

Sorry, I know, not very punny.  After I got the spars ready to go, it was onto the ribs.  I started deburring the edges on the bench grinder and the scotchbrite wheels.  It took me about 3 hrs of non-stop deburring.  I caught Tami in an unusually cooperative mood today.  She is usually cooperative, but not like she was today.  I ask her if she would help debur the lightening holes and she said YES (I didn't even have to grovel).

To debur the lightening holes, I used a Dremel tool with a wheel similar to the scotchbrite wheels (didn't hold up as well as the real thing).  After a short lesson on the finer points of a die grinder, I gave Tami the die grinder with a 1" scotchbrite wheel.  These worked GREAT.  As you can see from the picture below, Tami was cuttin' grooves (no pun intended).  To debur all of the lightening holes, I went through 2 wheels and the picture below shows what remains from the 3rd scotchbrite wheel.  These puppies are about $4.50 each.  WELL WORTH IT.  Between Tami and I, we spent 3 man-hours deburring lightening holes alone.

Tami was still in a cooperative mood after deburring the lightening holes as she agreed to help adjust all the rib flanges (i.e.: ensure 90 degree to web) and flute the ribs.  Again, another short lesson on how to use the hand seamer, the square, and she was off.  She seamed and I fluted.  We got all the ribs done with another 3 man-hours worth of work.  Thanks honey!!!  Just imagine all the quilt stores you can hit in one day when this plane is done...

Because of my wife's help, I am really close to beginning assembly of the first wing skeleton.  I got to hit the college books again for a couple of days (almost done, two more weeks).  It is hard to study when you want to be working on the plane.  Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Plato cannot hold a candle to Van's.