The construction of the wings is now complete and they are ready for covering. Looking at the plan I thought “A couple of days per wing” that was a couple of weeks ago and a bit more! There is a lot more building work involved than you would think plus there are numerous occasions where the part built structure has to be left for the glue to really cure before progressing.
The balsa for the ribs was quarter grain and of a perfect density except for the outer of the two root ribs which were of a relatively soft balsa and these have a good deal of stress on them as they carry the stress from the wing joining rods, however they had ply doublers so it was no real problem. For some reason the ply doublers ended just forward of rear spars, I can think of no reason why they weren’t continued for the whole length of the rib as both cost and weight savings are negligible. The other balsa components were spot on for the job it has to do.
There were a few minor problems, the ply mounting plates for the wing fixing for the struts were cut a little short and had to be replaced and the wing fixing bolt position of the rearward strut was a quarter inch or so from where the plan said it should have been, maybe it was a ‘build up of tolerances’ (I believe that is the euphemism for building errors). If you build one I would recommend not drilling the rear mounting hole until the wing and spar are fitted to the fuselage.
I am using standard ballrace servos for all surfaces and decided on having a servo for each aileron rather than the single servo and bellcrank method detailed on the plan. My only addition was to toughen up the wing root by covering it with wing skinning glass cloth bonded with epoxy resin. Unfortunately I discovered when it hadn’t full cured after 24 hours that the epoxy resin had gone off and after a week it still has a slight tackiness to it, if anyone has a fix for this I’d be pleased to hear it.
Due to restricted room in my workshop and the inclement weather I haven’t fitted both wings at the same time so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they have equal dihedral and that another ‘build up of tolerances’ hasn’t occurred.