Wing Spar Lamination Finish

[aerofurb]

As the attached picture shows, some of my wing spar cap strips haven't been machined smooth leaving the punched out rough finish to the edge. The picture is of the port wing lower spar laminations. The lower edges are okay and on the upper laminations only one is rough finished.

Given the desire to deburr all edges of everything, it seems strange to leave the edges of the spar strips like this as potential stress raisers. In the UK the EuroStar/SportStar has just had it's speeds capped whilst spar strength queries are investigated after an in flight failure. Although it was apparently in mountain turbulence, at speed and possibly overweight it does make one think about ones wing spars!

Is this the norm or not? I believe my spars were amongst the first to be built 'in house'.

 

[BigJohn]

Hi Jerry,

My spars looked like yours out at the ends, where they extend out beyond the structure itself. I checked with Van's and as I recall they expressed embarassment that they had shipped out someting that looked like that, but also said in their opinion the roughness would not cause any problems, and recommended no action on my part. Being a bit of a perfectionist by nature, I flat filed the rough edges to smooth out most of the imperfections.

My wing kit arrived mid-March 2009, just to give you an idea of when the spars were made.

John

 

[aerofurb]

Thanks for the replies - here and through PMs. It would appear I am not alone so that makes me feel much happier!

I didn't think mine could have slipped through a Van's quality check unnoticed.