Yesterday I carried on with the priming in the morning and went for a fly in my RV9A in the afternoon. Today it was more priming to start with - I think I'm about 2/3rds of the way through. Then I sorted out an approach to cutting the rib gussets from the 1/16" mahogany plywood called for in the plans. The 8' x 4' sheets of ply are very unwieldy to work with so I cut a small piece off and made the first set of gussets as per the full size rib plan. Then I laid these out on the plywood and established that a 5" x 13" piece was sufficient to make a half set (one side of the rib). I then cut five 13" strips off the main sheet which should be enough for 45 sets ( I need 44). The tip rib and the root rib are fully sheeted and there are 11 standard ribs in between each side. The master set of gussets were then used to draw round and the 5" strip with the outlines cut off. The gussets were then cut out on the bandsaw using a fine tooth blade running at medium speed. Rather than mass produce these I think I will make two sets each day to cater for the one daily rib. Finally I glued up the first rib using staples to hold the gussets in place while the glue sets. As per LAA requirements I also made a test piece with the batch of glue which will be inspected (destructively) by my LAA inspector to satisfy himself that the glue batch is satisfactory. I'm using T88 epoxy for gluing the ribs.
Yesterday I carried on with the priming in the morning and went for a fly in my RV9A in the afternoon. Today it was more priming to start with - I think I'm about 2/3rds of the way through. Then I sorted out an approach to cutting the rib gussets from the 1/16" mahogany plywood called for in the plans. The 8' x 4' sheets of ply are very unwieldy to work with so I cut a small piece off and made the first set of gussets as per the full size rib plan. Then I laid these out on the plywood and established that a 5" x 13" piece was sufficient to make a half set (one side of the rib). I then cut five 13" strips off the main sheet which should be enough for 45 sets ( I need 44). The tip rib and the root rib are fully sheeted and there are 11 standard ribs in between each side. The master set of gussets were then used to draw round and the 5" strip with the outlines cut off. The gussets were then cut out on the bandsaw using a fine tooth blade running at medium speed. Rather than mass produce these I think I will make two sets each day to cater for the one daily rib. Finally I glued up the first rib using staples to hold the gussets in place while the glue sets. As per LAA requirements I also made a test piece with the batch of glue which will be inspected (destructively) by my LAA inspector to satisfy himself that the glue batch is satisfactory. I'm using T88 epoxy for gluing the ribs. 