Upper Wing Ribs Done

Although not a huge deal, I consider this a sort of landmark. The ribs for the upper wing are done (14 of them). Although not quite perfect, I'm satisfied with how they turned out, considering I've never done this before. Here are some pics:

About Constructing a Rib

Moon, gluing the gussets on a mostly-finished rib.

Resin, hardener, disposable glue brushes, Popsicle sticks for mixing the epoxy, and measuring and metering devices.

I suck 10 milliliters of resin out of its container and deposit it into the graduated cylinder. Then I pour 1 milliliter of hardener in on top of it. I use the Popsicle stick to mix the two together. Then, I just dip the brush into the graduated cylinder and spread the glue on the joints.

10 milliliters of resin. It looks like a bit more than that due to surface tension. Now, I'll add a milliliter of hardener.

All the pieces of a rib, ready to be glued up.

Adding the tiny nails after gluing to hold the gussets in place while the epoxy cures.

When I first build a rib, I use nails to hold the gussets in place while the epoxy cures. When I glue the gussets on the other side of the rib, after removing it from the jig a day after building it, I place the jig (with a new rib in it) on top of it overnight. The weight from the jig provides plenty of pressure to give good joints.

Rib Number One

After what seems like a long while and lots of waiting, I finally glued up the first rib. I cut out all the pieces of wood for all 28 ribs before starting. I'm hoping to build one rib per day until they're all complete. The epoxy has to set up for about 24 hours, so one a day is all I can do, since I built only one jig.

Cutting 1/4" x 1/4" spruce with my miter saw.

A pile of pieces with a bronze Lie Nielsen block plane in the background.

Some parts in a baggie with the jig underneath.

I clamped this piece of scrap wood to the table on my oscillating belt sander to use as a fence to create steep angles on the cap strips where they meet at the trailing edge of the rib.

Cap strips, ready to go.

Stage one of cutting out the rib leading edges from plywood.

Cutting out the jig for creating the leading edges.

I'm using feeler gauges both in front of and behind scrap blocks made from the spars (.035" and .010") to create a little space where the spars will go. This is because the upper wings are swept slightly, but the ribs run parallel to the slipstream, so there needs to be a little wiggle room for the angle when I slip the ribs over the spars.

Rib number one glued up. I'll glue the gussets to the other side when I remove the rib from the jig tomorrow evening. The epoxy is not at all what I expected. It was white and runny. Doesn't seem right, but that's what Aircraft Spruce sent me and I think I mixed it right. Hopefully, the rib won't fall to pieces when I remove it from the jig tomorrow. I bought a small graduated cylinder to mix up the epoxy. It's a 25ml cylinder and I chopped it in half since I don't need all that capacity and want easier access for stirring and dipping my disposable glue brush. It worked okay as a container for mixing the epoxy, except it was a bit messy pouring the epoxy into the cylinder. Maybe I'll come up with a neater way to pour it in.

Let the building begin!

Today, my first kit arrived—3 weeks and twelve-hundred dollars later! I believe this kit contains all the wood necessary to build both the upper and lower wings. I'm going to need some luck figuring out what all the pieces are for. The spars are obvious. I think I know which pieces are the spars for the ailerons. I've got an idea which pieces to use for all the rib bracing. However, there are lots of other pieces and several sheets of plywood. I hope the instructions and plans shed some light on what's what.

These are the four boxes that arrived today.

These are the contents of the four boxes:
plywood, epoxy, spars, and tons of smaller pieces of wood.

Building the wing rib jig

I'm currently building the jig for the wing ribs. It's simply 3/4" MDF with the paper template glued to it. The instructions said to glue the template to lighter MDF (or similar material), then shape it exactly to the drawing, then use that to draw an outline on heavier MDF. That didn't make sense to me, so I just stuck the paper directly on the heavier MDF. Instead of gluing pieces of wood to the jig, I'm using 1/4" x 1" steel pins, as epoxy won't stick to them. I saw this done by another builder and thought it made sense. The pins were expensive (I spent about $25 on them), but I think it's a nice solution. I still need to cut a few small pieces of spar to glue to the jig, but I don't have the 1st wood kit yet. After I attach those to the jig, it will be done, and I can begin to build ribs.

Drilling holes in the MDF to accept the alignment pins.

It was challenging getting the holes drilled perfectly. I had to re-do a couple,
but that shouldn't be a problem.

The drill press is essential for getting the pins perpendicular
to the MDF. A hand drill jig would work, too.

All holes drilled and all pins inserted. Just need to glue on spar fragments.
I'll add screws to them, too. Since the upper wing is swept, but the ribs are
parallel to the slipstream, there needs to be a little wiggle room where the
spars go through all the ribs. This space will be provided by 5-thousandths
and 35-thousandths shims on either side of the spar fragments. That way,
I can't get the pieces of wood too close to the spars when I build a rib.

The Workshop

This is my workshop. After building all the wing ribs, I plan on building a 4' x 8' workbench which will go in the middle. I will assemble the wings on it and will build the fuselage on it. I'd better get it nice and level!

Entrance to the garage, my safe, and storage along the entire wall of the garage. All the storage is non-workshop related. Table saw in the foreground.

Two rolling storage cabinets, drill press, and air compressor.

Up until just a few weeks ago, all my tools were disorganized and in various locations throughout the garage, mostly tucked away out of sight or in ugly piles. Now, they're all hanging from pegboard.

These are two new work benches. The one on the left isn't quite finished. The miter saw will go between them so that they will act as infeed and outfeet tables, besides workbenches. Each has a nice sized shelf underneath for storage. The tables are 2' x 4' and are about 37" high (36" legs + adjustable feet + 3/4" MDF tops). The tool under the bench on the right is an oscillating belt sander.

Table saw and router table.

Screws, nails, plate joiner (aka biscuit joiner), a couple orbital sanders, Tormek knife sharpening system, jig saw, pneumatic brad nailer, Milwaukee drill, cordless circular saw, Skil worm drive saw, and router.

Baby Great Lakes Info

Here's a bit of background info about the Baby Great Lakes and some photos I found online, just so you get an idea what I'm trying to create.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldfield_Baby_Great_Lakes

(I wonder which kit SHE comes in!!!)

Back to school

I've spent a few hours studying the directions and plans. I quickly scanned the directions after opening the package. There were some things I didn't understand, but I figured the plans might add some clarity. After studying the plans for a while, some things were clarified, but even more questions came up, too. I'm guessing that the kits, as they arrive, will shed even more light on things. So, as things progress and I study the various pieces of the puzzle—directions, plans, and the actual wood and metal—things will become clearer. For things that remain confusing or about which I am uncertain, I will have a chat with a local EAA regular. They meet on the second Tuesday of each month at Thun field (Pierce County Airport), just a bit outside Tacoma.


I ordered the first kit from Aircraft Spruce yesterday. It includes everything I need to build the ribs (including epoxy and nails). It also includes the spars. The Baby, the Super, and the Buddy all use this kit.

The plans are here!

Looks like I have my work cut out for me! It would've been nice if Aircraft Spruce had shipped the plans in a stiff cardboard tube, as it would've prevented some damage to the paper.