Left wing: wing tip

TLDR

• Installed the left wing tip

Details

While waiting for the sealant to dry on the left tank, I started to install the left wing tip.

After going through the process on the right side, this one is a little easier.

Before installing the tip

Rib first

The first step is to remove the jig, and install the rib 14.

I made a small mistake here. The KAI does not say specifically when to remove the jig, all it says is that install the rib and it drew the rivets for the rib only. It did not say anything about instaling rivets where the jig used to be.

I followed the KAI to install the rib, but forget to put the rivet for the holes vacated by the jig. It caused a small panic when I realized I forgot 4 rivets right behind the rib!

My options are either somehow install the rivets in an extremely tight space, or just unrivet the rib and add the rivets first, then reinstall the rib. It’s not the end of world, but I really didn’t want to drill out the rivets on the rib.

So I tried to find a way to rivet the 4 holes. It turns out the lighting hole is just big enough to let my hand riveter go through. So I put the 4 rivets through the lighting hole, then sent the hand riveter through the hole too. I then manipulated the rivets inside the wing to rivet the 4 holes. It’s a little challenging, but got the work done without drilling out the rib. I was happy at the end.

RIb is in place, all holes riveted

Fit the tip

With the rib in place, the next step is to fit the tip. The tip’s edge is supposed to butt against the rib. The width is about 20mm.

Same as the last tip, I laid a strip of blue painter tape around the place where the tip is supposed to be, then used a knife to cut off any tape that’s not sticking to anything. Then the width of the tape is the same width of the tip that needs to butt against the rib. I then transfered the tap to the tip’s edge so I knew exactly how much to push in.

I held the tip in place, and used a ratcheting strap to finally hold the tip as tight as possible against the wing’s leading edge. You can kind of see the blue tape that I used from the picture. Wing tip temporarily secured to the skin

Match driling and countersinking

Then I drilled holes on the tip to match the holes on the wing skin. Most of the holes were easy, But the few towards the trailing edge has he composite tip on top of the rib and it covers the holes. I used a hole finder to locate the holes and drilled. But there were 2 holes super hard to reach with a hole finder.

I used a special tool for the last 2 holes. I don’t know what it’s called, but basically it finds holes with equal distance. Using the first 5 holes that were already drilled, I marked the position of the 6th and 7th hole, and drilled them out. I used this tool to locate holes with equal distance

THen I countersunk the holes that needed to be countersunk and put a aluminum washer on the back as strengther. Match drilled holes

Installing

After all the prep work, the installation is the easiest step.

I just clecoed the holes to align, then shot the rivets, done.