(page 13-02) A wing and a ....swear(word).

Or maybe a prayer to the god of aircraft construction that I'll do a better job inventorying the parts when the kits arrive.  With the empennage and fuselage kits, I inventoried essentially all the sheet metal parts and most of the bags, without always looking at every single part in each bag.

 I didn't count all the bolts, nuts, washers and certainly not all the rivets.  My thinking was that my time was better spent building, and if some small part was missing, I'd order it.  The small parts are cheap, and priority mail gets me the parts from Van's to North Carolina in two to three days.  This method worked surprisingly well, with only a couple of nuts or nut plates missing.  When the wing kit arrived, for some reason I didn't inventory anything.  I simply spread the various parts around the garage wherever I could find space.  I don't know why I did this.  Step one of the wing section of the build manual called for cutting apart an angle about two feet long into 20 smaller angles and putting these aside for later use.  You guessed it.  I couldn't find this angle.  Over the next three days, I spent at least three hours searching for the part.  On day two, having abandoned hope and cursing myself for my sloppy inventory technique, I made the decision to reorder but, fortunately, put it off for a day.  On the next day, I found it cleverly hidden out of sight on a box beneath a table.  I had to get on all fours to see it!  Inventory technique exonerated (except for the wasted time).

Step two called for cutting apart a stiffener plate.  Couldn't find it for two days.  The moral of this story is to do a proper job with the inventory and avoid this anguish.  With the fuselage kit, which has more parts and more different parts than any other kit, I made a notation on the inventory sheet telling where each part or bag was put.  I named the various cabinets and sets of shelves, then put that name next to the checked-off part on the inventory sheet (being an engineer, I'm surprised I didn't number them instead of naming them).  With the wing kit, I can't even find where I put the inventory sheet!  I am, at this moment, taking a solemn vow to do a better job with this.

Step three of the wing kit involved drilling and tapping four 5/16th-inch holes for the tie-down rings in the wing spars.  To better explain my fear of this, realize that the wing spars arrive as multiple anodized plates and angles beautifully riveted together.  Each spar is a thing of beauty.

 Doing anything to it makes me nervous, conjuring up visions of a vary large check which would be required to get a replacement.

The drilling and tapping went well.  As shown, the back of the tap handle accepted a 3/8th inch ratchet drive, which greatly facilitated the task.  Boelube was applied to the tap initially, and for every two rotations clockwise, I rotated the tap one rotation counterclockwise to clear the chips (a technique I learned as a student working in a machine shop).

You may be wondering why both top and bottom got tapped.  Best I can figure, it's to allow a hard point on top of the wing if a person is willing to drill the wing skin to expose it.  I'm thinking ahead to somehow using these to support the wings from the ceiling joists once they're finished.