It feels like it's been forever, but I finally got back out to the garage and started working on wing skins again! Because it's been a month and I'm a little out of practice for riveting, I set aside the tanks for now and instead finished up all of the remaining dimpling of the wing skins. They are all now prepped and ready to go for down the road (top skins for right wing as well as bottom skins for both wings). I have to admit, the 20 degree warmer weather makes a big difference, especially when I need to do some spot priming! I may end up insulating and heating the garage one of these days.
The main remaining tasks for the wings:
- Replace the rear spar on the left wing
- Rivet on the leading edge and top skins of the left wing
- Ailerons and flaps
- Fuel tanks
- Bottom skins
There's plenty to do beyond that (pitot lines, autopilot mounts, lighting, fiberglass tips, etc), but most of these additional items won't happen until near the end of the build. I won't rivet on the bottom skins until I'm done with the rest of the plane, simply because leaving those off makes mounting all of this other stuff easier. There's no reason to buy all of that for a year or two given how fast technology changes these days. Even something as basic as lighting changes pretty quickly.
I'll probably get started on ailerons and flaps next. They require a large, very flat surface because of how they're constructed (I'll have to read further into the plans, but it sounds like it needs to be a "box," as opposed to just a solid flat surface - so 1" MDF built on top of 2x4s or something), so I'll have to build another sacrificial top for my workbenches.
