On Saturday, Allen and Scott returned to help with the wing struts. First we put the wings back on the fuselage supported by the fuse bolts and the wing stands. I totally would not have thought of this, and I’m glad Allen did, but we also checked the wing height using the string.
A few adjustments were needed to get to the required 85mm.
We then set to trimming the strut to size and marking and drilling the location of the holes in the fitting. The photo guide has you clamping the fitting inside the strut and drilling the first couple of holes in place but there’s no way to really tell if the fitting is straight inside the strut and I’d heard people say that clamping doesn’t keep it there anyway.
So Allen came up with a different way to do it, using the drill press to drill holes straight through the fitting in the correct place, and then lining it up with the strut on the outside. I used some long #40 drill bits to secure the fitting to the strut.
This worked very well indeed and gave a perfect fit each time.
Here’s the front strut attached
and the rear
This picture didn’t come out very well because it looks like the wing is still on the stand but there is actually daylight between them – the wing is supporting itself on the fuselage and struts.
Finally, I took this attempt to be arty picture of our completed work of the two days.
