Chapter Index
Status
Soap Box
Chapters 1-3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Pictures
Chapter 19

Wings

Here is the glass going on the bottom of the first wing.  One down, three more to go...

This is the hotwiring rig that I have setup.  Above is the trolley that is made from the hardware for a sliding closet door.  This supports the weight of the hotwire saw, and allow you to use fingertip pressure to guide the wire.  The saw iself is made from two pieces of 2 inch PVC tubing, with electrical conduit for the arms that hold the wire.

At left is one of the planforms ready to wire.  I blocked out all of the planforms to make sure that I had one set of lefts and one set of rights, and was very careful to make sure everything swept the correct direction.

This is a little cutter I made to make the recesses for the access holes.  It is a piece of the same wire used to hotwire the cores (.035 Inconel) stapled to the end of a block.  It does not take much voltage to heat this up.  The cuts were fast and smooth, with nice radiuses at the back end.

Here are the pieces in the jigs getting ready for the shear web layup.  I made these jigs because the ones I wanted to borrow were tied up with a set of eracer wings.  Basically, these were a waste of one day and $40.  I misunderstood the offset cutouts for the WL17.4, which was clearly illustrated in Figure 2 and Figure 3 in Chapter 19.  I made them so that they all basically looked like Figure 4.  As a result, I jigged them up with a nice little twist in them at jigs 1 & 2.  I caught it that they didn't look right before anythin was curing, and the next day a set of well used jigs showed up and made life much easier.

Here is the second wing curing, and the outside skins on the winglets.  Whole lotta curin' goin' on...

Here is the bondo holding the hinges to the ailerons in preparation for bonding.  I floxed the hinge to the aileron here, then after cure installed the rivets.  I did not want to squeeze out all o fthe flox that was ensuring alignment.  The hinges work smooth.  The clecos do a good job of holding the hinges and yet make it easy to pop the ailerons on and off.  I will replace them with screws down the road when I think I am done with the removal process.

Here you can see the main wing/spar assembly coming together.