Wing Ribs

The weather is finally cooperating!  We're double-teaming the bottom wings this week.  Andy and Dennis are working on the ribs while I finish them and prepare the spars.

As I mentioned before, the ribs are very easy to make.  They are not a built-up style, but cut out of a single piece of 1/4" basswood.  Andy made a jig and is routing them out on his router table.  The compression ribs are a solid piece of 1/4" plywood.  I had to glue 1/8" plywood reinforcing strips on the truss ribs as well as a diagonal spruce stiffener on the compression ribs.  The trailing edge ribs were routed out of basswood as well.  The nose ribs (not shown) will also be done this week.

Regular truss ribs, compression ribs and trailing edge ribs

Before the ribs can be attached, I had to glue triangular glue-blocks to the spars.  They were cut in 1.5" lengths, pre-drilled and glued/nailed in place.

Spars with glue blocks installed

Andy is great with jigs and building things to make the assembly easier.  He came up with this nifty little jig that holds the triangular glue blocks in place while they are being glued and nailed.  It holds them square with the spar and keeps them from sliding around while being nailed with the slippery glue underneath.

Jig to hold glue blocks

Might be ready to start attaching some ribs later this week.  I'm just taking my time to make sure everything is OK.  Once I start gluing ribs, I'm pretty committed to their location and all the other attachments.  Since I have so little of the original wings to go by, I have to make sure they are correct.  I also need to plan, and possibly make soon, the interplane strut fittings.  More photos soon!