Rear Spar

To get a jump on things I started working on the rear spars. Mainly just doing some of the trimming that is required before really getting into it. I bought a new bandsaw and was able to test it out as I trimmed the excess off the fuselage attach point on the spar doublers. (love the bandsaw, wish I had it earlier - Craftsman 10 inch) This worked out well as I matched up the two doublers and match drilled it straight into scrap wood. Then used the bandsaw to cut through both at the same time. One thing I thought of after the fact is that I could have used the doubler as a template and traced the outline onto the other doubler before feeding it to the bandsaw. My measurements turned out pretty accurate, but this might have helped make it quicker.



After tracing the pushrod hole from the spar onto the aileron attach doubler, I used a step drill to punch out the holes in the doubler plate. I then put a grinder in the drill press on high speed and it shaped the hole up right away.




Here is one picture that I will be asking vans about. It seems both rear spar center doublers lean to the right when looking at them directly from the back. Not sure if this is a problem in manufacture, but I will contact Van's as well as talk to the guys on the forums. - UPDATE - From the forums, it seems this is no big deal, as long as hole/edge distance is satisfactory. I measured it up and each rivet hole is far enough from the edge. So looks good and onto priming and assembly..