Sonex* Wing Ribs


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Ribs are where I started. Simple, repetitive, easy to do over if required. Tip/trick: when laying these out, make a pattern of the size required. Then lay these as tightly as possible on the sheet, not in the rectangles as the material planning guide describes. Less scrap this way.

Cutting the 3 in holes. 7/31/99

Cutting the 4 in holes. 7/31/99

Hammer forming on the form block before adding flutes. 7/31/99

Saturday's production. 7/31/99

Sunday's production (2 hr to cut to -01..-04 flat pattern and hammer form). 8/1/99

Setup for trimming the aft wing ribs to size on the table router. Held rib blank to pattern block using the bolts for holding the rib blanks between the form block & backing block. Sockets on bolts used as handles. Used laminate edge trim bit (1/4" dia) to cut rib blanks. For doing 26 ribs, the process of making the form block and setting up the router may not be worth the trouble. But it is very fast once set up. 8/7/99 (posted 11/21/99)

Rib gussets. 8/2-8/6/99 (posted 11/21/99)

Hammer forming aft rib. 8/7/99 (posted 11/21/99)

On the aft ribs, flange can be bent pretty far before adding flutes per the form block. Hammered over shaft of a screwdriver to form flutes. 8/7/99 (posted 11/21/99)

After the raw forming, I set the ribs aside for quite a while. Below, I get back to straightening the ribs.

Straightening aft ribs. This is intended to give a nice smooth wing skin. Using small strip of .025 held against flange to ensure that rivet locations contact skin, and that flute locations are flush or slightly away from the skin contact point. 4/28/00

Using large-size fluting pliers to bring ribs flat. I have been doing this twice - bring rib flat to table, then check rib flange for shape relative to skin, tweak rib flange, then re-check / tweak flutes to bring rib back to flat. Next will be to draw centerlines on the rib flange to align with the skin holes. On the aft ribs, I added 4 slight flutes along the lower aft flange to improve rib flatness. In doing this, I made sure that flute locations would not coincide with skin rivet locations. 4/28/00