Junior high PE. Do you remember shirts and skins? My first metal shop was also in junior high. Thank you Mr. Bradshaw for what I learned, especially the safety stuff. I also hit my first rivet in junior high metal shop. I still have the napkin holder I made. I lost the BBQ set though.

OK, on to work.

What a day.  The ribs are riveted on.

On to the skins!

Alignment is important and wing twist (or washout) must be eliminated.

Top rear skin first, then rear bottom skins then forward skins.

Forward skins will be the trickiest. They are kind of pre-formed but not all the way.

We are going to need MORE clecos. When building the RV-9A, most wing rivets are silver clecos. ALL the skin blind rivets are copper clecos. I’ll need MANY more copper clecos to finish this job. I probably over cleco but it makes sure everything is properly aligned.

By the way, Tom and I both wear shirts during assembly.

When I look at the pictures for today, it looks like nothing much got done.

BUT

A TON of work got done, MANY boxes got checked off. Stuff was ready to go!

Funny how pictures can hide all the work that got done. Reinforcement plates installed.

The Root Rib was bolted in. Aileron Bell crank for BOTH sides is completed.

I believe we are ready to rivet the ribs. TONS of drilling, deburring and cleco work was completed today.

Is it time to rivet the Ribs?

I’m excited!

Not the BBQ type, but those are good too!

Progress is made. We started with wings because they are easy to store while building the fuselage. Following the plans is important because there are so many parts!

The current tough part is how do you mount the root rib? We have many steps to go.

By the Way, my buddy David has the BEST BBQ sauce in the world. We call it Uptown BBQ Sauce (Of course, I upped it a little with a little rye whiskey!)

Done with wing ribs?  Time for BBQ ribs to celebrate.