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Debo Cox - Zodiac 601 XL
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Date: 11-5-2006
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Number of Hours: 0.00
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Manual Reference: 6W
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Brief Description: Complete Right Wing Spar (Part 2)
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I wanted to detail some of the challenges I encountered in the construction of my right main spar. Hopefully someone will be able to learn from my mistakes, and avoid a few of the little stumbling blocks I tripped over. The first is detailed in photo #1 below. When I was riveting the spar cap angles in place, the cap angle was bowing up during riveting. I posed the question to the Matronics list and was able to get a couple of really good responses. I ended up doing two things to fix the problem. 1.) I used a reamer to very slightly enlarge the holes in the cap angle - thus releasing any pent-up stresses that would develop between the two parts being riveted. Apparantly, even though they were matchdrilled, there was a very small error introduced into the drilling that was causing extra material to bunch up when I riveted. The reaming made the material lay down nice and flat when riveting. 2.) Using an idea from fellow scratchbuilder Ron Lendon, I concocted a rubber device that would apply pressure around the rivet while it was being riveted. This, in effect, clamps down the cap angle to the spar cap and allows the pieces to be held firmly in place while riveting. I took the rubber grip thingy out of a spark plug socket and hose-clamped it around my flush rivet set. Sounds like some crazy contraption, but it was actually a fairly elegant solution to a problem with a lot of variables. Worked like a charm and solved the problem entirely. I ended up drilling out a replacing a total of 8 solid rivets to solve this (and other) riveting problems. Which leads me to the next challenge ... While drilling out a mis-driven AD6 rivet, I managed to enlarge the hole in the spar cap well past the rivet size. Knowing that it's generally ok to go to the next size fastener when this happens, I shot an email to ZAC asking if it was ok to put an A4 bolt in it's place. I got a reply from Nick saying it was ok, so I drilled out the bad hole to accomodate an A4 bolt, and bolted it like the one bolt called out for in the plans.
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Rivet problem before fixing it
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Bolt replacing AD6 rivet - front view (upside down)
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Bolt replacing AD6 rivet - rear view (upside down)
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