Wing tip progress
I’m making real progress with the wing tips. I soldered the regulator boards to the nav light boards after marking the cutouts. That was great fun (simple) with a good soldering iron. I did a lot of trimming of the tip attach flanges with the cutoff wheel in the angle grinder, then used a palm sander with 60 grit to cleanup the edges. Both wing tips have had the attach holes drilled. Part of the trick to getting that right was to stuff the inside of the tip to apply a little outward pressure. I held the tip in place and Tanya drilled the holes. I decided that, if done correctly (carefully), it is best to start drilling at the aft edge in order to lock the trailing edge in alignment with the aileron.
Then I got to work on the tip ribs. I’m not quite sure why they aren’t pre-punched. After preparing the ribs (mark, drill, deburr), I clecoed the tips back on and carefully fit the inboard rib into the tip adjacent to the aileron. I clamped and taped the rib in place, drilling only one attach hole that I could get to with an angle drill just for security, double checked aileron alignment, and removed the tip to drill the rib to the tip. A nice angle drill sure came in handy when dealing with these tip ribs.
With all of that done, I mixed up some epoxy and epoxied in the ribs and backing strips along the attach flange. Clothes pins are my friend. After the epoxy is cured, I’ll redrill all of the holes, countersink, and proceed.
