Left Wing - Match Drilling

Today was all about moving clecos over and over and over.  I match drilled the top skins - lots of work with very little to see for progress.

Next came the J stringers, which get threaded between the ribs and the top skin to stiffen things up.  There are two stringers that meet and overlap each other at the same spot as where the inboard and outboard skins overlap.  I cut them to length to terminate at the inboard and outboard ribs and marked a centerline to help locate everything through the holes in the skin for drilling (turned out to be unnecessary because there's so little wiggle room to begin with).

Next up were the bottom skins, which follow the same process as the top skins. The only difference is there are no J stringers or wing walk doublers for the bottom skins.  I hung the bottom skins, then got to match drilling.  By the time everything was said and done, my clecoing hand was spent!

Things start to get a bit more complicated now.   I need to spend some time doing research about the next steps - leading edge ribs/skins and the tank.  The leading edges are super tight to fit and there are a number of different ways I've seen people tackle them.  The Orndorff (sp?) video I have about putting the wings together goes against the normal Van's method a little bit.  Van's has you build the leading edges in a cradle, much like the horizontal stabilizer.  The problem is the skin is much thicker and much tighter than the horizontal stabilizer, so apparently it's quite a fight.  Orndorff actually builds the leading edge on the spar and snugs the skins down onto the ribs using ratchet straps.