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Leading Edge

posted Nov 9, 2011, 12:16 PM by Bill Thomasson   [ updated Dec 29, 2011, 12:32 PM ]
Part Started: 9/7/2011
Part finished: 9/24/2011
Time : 34.5
Changes from plans:
  • None- so far
  • Possible change - Ductwork landing lights.  Still hoping to avoid adding them and have all lights in the wingtips but will see after looking at more RV's at Oschkosh 2012.
 
Leading edges went together quickly and without problems.  The only hard part was getting the ribs in and the cleoco's in the very nose.  Left leading edge I started at the rear and worked my way to the front.  I had to fight to get every cleoco in, and it took 2+ hours to get it assembled for match drilling.  The right one I got the formost 3 clecos in on the topskin in the very nose, and then turned it over and got the first 2 cleco's in the bottom skin.  This was much easier (I did this on the workbench, and not in the jig.  I then put it in the jig and the other clecos went in quickly and easily.  Less than 1  hr to get it assmebled.  Other change I did was to backrivet the J-stiffener in before inserting the ribs.  It was easy still to put the ribs in with the stiffener already riveted in, and saved a little time with the riveting.
 
Leading edge complete.
Leading edge being riveted on.  The bottom skin side was very easy to rivet as they could be squeezed (with no bottom skin in the way.  With the topskin on, 80% of them needed 2 people.  Since I am working solo, this made it very difficult to get them bucked.  I was planning on backriveting them, but they were too far in for my offset 12" backrivet to get.  needed about 1/2 inch more offset. Brian (http://www.brianmichael.org/) stopped by one day and helped me out.  If you are working solo, you MIGHT try attaching the Nose on before riveting the outer top skin.  If backriveting the topskin, it will make it more cumbersome to flip the wing, but possible to get the leading edge and topskin without help. (Just an idea as I did not do it this way and don't know if it really will help or not.  Nothing will prevent the topskin from going on after the leading edge.
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