Rib fluting and planning
BTW, after nearly 2 months without rain, it rained 10”+ over the last 4 days!! We needed it!!

Today was a pretty lazy day and was hard to get motivated to do anything. I finished fluting the remaining fuel tank ribs as best I could. I wish I could tell you I figured out how to do it but I really didn’t. Some ribs were easier than others. I usually had to aggressively flute the third and fourth hole from the leading edge and the rest as much as required. The two end ribs that seal off the ends of the tank were the hardest and I never did get them fluted well. We’ll see what happens when I try and assemble things.

I have to tackle this new fuel tank before I can go much farther, so I spent most of the evening just kinda of goofing around with things. I had some scrap .032” that I cut with the jig-saw as a test to see how straight I could cut it. Didn’t come out too bad but wasn’t perfectly straight either. Debating on whether or not I should just cut it this way or take it to have it cut. I don’t know what I didn’t have the sheet metal place cut it to length… didn’t want the additional cost I guess, figuring I could just do it myself. Still may. Anyway, after cutting the test piece to the width of the fuel tank skin, I matched drilled it using the existing fuel tank skin as a template. After that I dimpled the screw holes to #8 to see how things fit on the spar. It fit well. Next I attempted to put the leading edge bend in it. This was just a test to play with ideas I had and to see how close I could get. I used a piece of 1 ½” PVC pipe screwed to a board. My test piece was sandwiched between the pipe and board. This .032” is stiff and requires some ummpff to get it to bend. The bend came out looking good but was way off from where it needed to be. (This is why you play with scrap pieces first!) Also, I think the 1 ½” bend radius might be too big. Will try a 1” piece tomorrow. I’m still thinking how best to bend my 10’ 7” long piece. I have some plans from Bill VonDonne who had to bend his Sonex leading edge.

(Time: 4 hours)
- posted by Matthew @ 8/31/2003 09:38:03 AM