Hot wire cutter in action.
Close up of spar.
Page Five----And On Goes The Building
| Temporary fitting of the ribs. Don't drop the fuselage ! ! ! |
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Hot wire cutter in action. |
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| Ribs are 1" insulation foam. Cut with a hot wire bow. More on that later. Note root rib gets a 1/8" ply face bonded to foam. |
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The two root rib plywood doublers are used as the template for cutting the ribs. |
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| Spacer blocks go between the ribs fore and aft. The ribs will have a .025 aluminum cap strip wrapped clear around the leading and trailing edge spars and bonded in place with T88 epoxy. |
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12 Volt DC power for hot wire cutter came from the Van battery. Nearing end of cut. |
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| The not so high tech hot wire bow. 3/4" ply, screw eyebolt, machine screw eyebolt with spring. A bit of .041 safety wire, Three PK sheet metal screws and a bit of thin scrap aluminum to act as a switch. Years ago I used a set up like this to cut foam wing cores for radio control airplanes and it still works! We hooked this rig up to a 12 volt car battery. You control the heat by pulsing the power on and off . |
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Ribs in place. Fuselage hanging from rafters above. |
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| A close up of the switch. A bit of scrap foam with aluminum tape to hold it in place was used to keep the ole thumb from over heating. We were able to mount this in a vertical position and use it like a table saw to hot wire the rib spacer block strips. |
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Cap strips bonded to foam ribs. It's ready for covering. This is the left wing panel. |
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| Hey---ya gotta take a break now and then! Offutt AFB "Base Lake" just a hair under 4 lbs. |
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Now for the right wing panel. Getting started with the epoxy and glass tape raps on the L. E. and T. E. spars. These make the ribs get a better bond to the spars. |
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| Here you can see the epoxy glass tape wrap on the leading edge member and the .025 alum. cap strip. |
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Close up of spar. |
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| Left wing----this is the root rib with extra blocks in place and the 1/8" ply epoxy bonded to rib. |
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Another view of the hanging wing panel. |
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