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Andy_RR

Well Known Member
I've been dragging my heels with my wing build for a while now. I tell myself that it's because life and stuff have got in the way, but in reality it is a handful of duff rivets holding the nose ribs to the main spar. I've been trying to wind the build momentum back up again, and have successfully drilled out all but this and another. This one was a disaster! :(

IMG_3105.jpg


How would the Great and Good of VAF clean this up and finish it well enough to move on?

I am feeling bad about this because it's in the main spar, it''s the second-most inboard nose rib and it's the lowest rivet (i.e. closest to the bottom skin). All together a reasonably highly stressed part of the wing, one would think! :(

All advice will be recieved. Some even gratefully! ;)

Thanks in advance for your help!

Andrew
 
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Hi Andrew,

I usually like close ups but I'm trying to wrap my head around that pic and I just can't make out the location...even with your decription. I help guys and gals with their building and I've seen worse :). For me....another pic or two not quite so close would help.

Hope you get back into your project. You are correct to not let these little obstacles get in your way!
 
Rick,
You're looking at the back of the main spar. The rib flange you see with the single -4 rivet is the front flange of a main rib - the rib lying 'horizontal' in that photo. The larger AN470 rivets are the factory-set ones holding the spar reinforcement plates to the spar channel.
 
Hi Andrew, 1st send that photo to vans, see what they have to say.
Glad you are getting back into it, don't let this stop you !
I would say just Blend out the small holes and go up one size in the rivet, maybe an an6 or a nut and bolt.
If you like pm me and we can talk anti it.
Just a note, I'm not at home, I'm flying accross oz just now, and have limited Internet and phone.
 
Rather than just stepping up the hole, you need to first "pull" the hole in the direction of the damage so that you remove as much of the damage area as possible while keeping the hole to a minumum diameter. Blend all the damage, an engineer needs to know the dimensions of the blend after clean up and what size hole you have after stepping it up.
 
Crack?

Am I seeing things, or is that a hairline crack at the 12 o'clock top position in the picture (in the bullet/cone shaped area)?
 
paul mosher said:
Sure looks like a crack. CALL VANS!
Click to expand...

I doubt it's a crack, it's REALLY hard to crack reasonably thick aluminum while just working it. A particular USAF C-130 just had an incident where they almost grounded all the XC-130X's because an NDI tech thought he saw a crack, but it was just a scratch. Moral: lots of stuff looks like cracks, few are. That being said, find out for sure!

I'd be really tempted to drill that up to the largest size I could that would maintain E.D. on all sides and throw something like a hi-lok (HL-18 and appropriate collar) in there. Better fatigue resistance than a(n aluminum) rivet due to better hole filling. I might also look at cold bonding an 063 doubler on there, with the understanding that I'd pull the hi-lok and doubler off after 50 and then 100 then 300 hours to make sure everything was cool.
 
call vans

Instead of looking for advise on this forum I would suggest you get a definitive fix from the manufacturer, Vans.
 
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