A Right Wing Bias

I just can't help it. The right wing simply appeals to me more than the left wing. Why? Simply because the right wing doesn't have that irritating stall warning tab sticking out through the leading edge. That tab drove me nuts with its propensity to grab me as I walked by, and it was no mean feat getting it through the little slot in the leading edge of the wing skin when I tried to get that skin into place unassisted. So, no tab on the right wing makes it my preferred wing to work on.

You may be wondering why it has taken me so long to get started on the second wing. There's no mystery about it; between bad weather, a stressful week at the paying job, and some difficulty in finding someone to help me move the finished wing off of the benches and the skeleton of the right wing onto them, it took a full week for me to get back to work. It's done now, so progress should begin again.

First, though, I had to double check some of the work I've already done. I read on another builder's blog about a mistake he had made when installing some of the nutplates in the fuselage. After installing dozens of the same size nutplate, he missed a direction in the plans to install a different size. They're down in the tunnel between the seats and it took him a week to get a right angle drill attachment to drill them out and replace them with the correct size. Because I pride myself on my ability to screw up in every way imaginable, I thought it somewhat (if not very) likely that I too had made this mistake. It was with a measurable degree of trepidation that I approached the holes (or, at least, what I think are the holes in question) with a pair of AN-3 bolts.

To my immense relief, they fit just fine.

I had Co-pilot Egg along with me this morning. The weather had us up to 38 degrees today and to me that seems quite pleasant; I thought it would be warm enough for her to spend a couple of hours in the shop with me.

She had had enough after forty-five minutes. For the last twenty minutes of riveting, she sat in the car getting warm. Even so, the time that she was able to help me was well spent; riveting goes more than twice as fast with two people doing it. We got the first of the six skin panels on. Five more to go!