More Wing Assembly

The leading edge will be nailed to these strips. Also, it will bend down slightly to their rear, so as to eliminate a source of chaffing on the fabric. I attached these the same way I attached all the corner blocks when assembling the wing—with epoxy and my neighbor's pin nailer.

Some folks say to leave a gap here so that the space in the leading edge can breath, I guess to allow moisture to escape. As you can see, I didn't leave space at both ends. I would butt one end up against a rib, so as to provide a little extra strength and leave the other end open. There is one on the top of the spar like this, and one on the bottom. Should provide for a nice current flow. Of course, it might also not make a lick of difference.

Forming the end of the leading edge spruce strip where the wing tip bow will attach. I began by just taking the corners off with a chisel. When I got close, you can see where I pounded a scrap piece of tubing on to see how much further I needed to take it.

Don't pound the scrap tubing on too far! I was barely able to get it back off!!!

After getting very close, I smoothed it out with some sandpaper.

The end result. Almost looks like a factory dowel!

The leading edge spruce strip installed. You can see the rounded end on the left.

You can see the pin nail through the corner block to attach the leading edge spruce strip. The pin nailer made installing the corner blocks very easy and worked quite effectively.

Some of the other corner blocks (note the pin nails) and the strip for attaching the leading edge aluminum sheet.

The outboard brackets, corner blocks, and leading edge attach strip.

After attaching the leading edge spruce strip, I used this block plane to round it over to a contour to match the nose ribs. I finished it off with a little sanding by hand.

A nice, smooth, rounded, nose contour. Of course it will be covered with aluminum sheet, so it probably doesn't need to be perfect, but it wasn't too difficult to get a nice smooth, curved edge to it.