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T61 Diary - April 2010

To glue the sheeting to the top of the mainspar, I used every battery in my bin - there is some history there! The aluminium angle again kept things straight. Once the glue had dried, I applied PVA to the ribs, taped two 1/4 x 1/8in spruce strips to the top of the skin, one sitting on the false l.e., the other midway between the spar and l.e., and then used masking tape at each rib station to hold the sheet down. (The picture below right is of the other wing - I forgot to photograph the right wing at this stage)

I was pleasantly surprised by the fit of the ribs to the ply sheeting. The underside was then sheeted in, because of the reduced curvature, I was able to do this as a single stage process.

I sorted out the spoiler and aileron servo mountings and the spoiler actuating arm before fitting any ribs to the spar. The ribs had to be threaded over the wiring tubes, then the assembly offered up and each rib glued to the spar individually. Of course, at this stage it is practically impossible to make any further adjustment to the front edge of the rib so lots of dry fitting went on before anything was eventually glued in place.

The ribs outboard of the aileron servo could be fitted individually. Next, the trailing edges pieces were fitted between ribs 3 and 16 to lock the ribs so that the assembly could be lifted off the board to glue in the lower rear spar. I had initially planned to glue the ribs to this as I went but, because of the undercamber, the rear spar floats off the board making it hard to keep it straight and level with the underside of the ribs.

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