This Weekend: The Ugly

I was sick from a cold all weekend and so in hindsight I perhaps should have spent the weekend in bed, except that this tale would still be happening, just with a different date on it.

With the window in place, we were trying to work out the work sequence to finish everything up so I got out the wing root skins that go on top of the inboard part of the wing over to the sunroof. And that’s where we found this

Gap between wing root and sunroof

The skin isn’t wide enough to reach the fuselage side and it is too low, it should be level and parallel with the sunroof edge. How could this happen, there’s very little wriggle room in the construction of that area.

Gap between wing root and sunroof

I bought Edition 2 of the 750 kit and shortly before my wings were finished they release Edition 3 which mostly raised the profile of the roof and gave a bit more space (and I think a bit more weight) so I upgraded my kit by buying new plans and a couple of replacement ribs. Now what I think has happened is that the root rib in that picture is an edition 2 rib so it has a lower profile which is why the skin is too low – it doesn’t explain why the rib is too narrow, though.

I’ve asked Zenith for advice but Joe Harrington on the forums (who has helped me with many things) suggests I should build the existing rib up with l-angles to match the curve of the roof and then get a new (bigger) skin piece to install. I can see how that would work, but I’m bummed that I have to do it. And I think this will probably ruin our hoped-for finish in May since this will take a while to do.

I did see some other posts on the forum from 2013 where others were in the same boat so I think there were perhaps some issues with the “upgrade” but I’m only now getting to discover them for myself. Even near the end, this project throws up some curveballs, but like everything else they will be overcome.