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- Apr 17, 2012
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I put this in Off Topic because it's not on a biplane...
The Jodel has a bolt on each side of the wing at the trailing edge that goes vertically through the root ribs and then through the lower fuselage longerons (all wood construction). I'm fitting a new wing to an existing fuselage, and have to figure out how to make holes through the ribs that will line up with the existing holes in the fuselage longerons.
Drilling down using the holes in the longerons isn't possible for two reasons - there is a diagonal right above the hole location that prevents getting a drill into the hole from the top, and the outer edge of the hole is only about 0.100 inch from the inside of the ply skin.
I have some optimism that I can use dowel centers to locate the holes on the top surface of the ribs. I have less optimism that I can match the angle of the holes (the fuselage isn't perfect - the holes aren't exactly the same angle on both sides, the bottom surface of the fuselage isn't necessarily flat, the top surface of the ribs has ply gussets in addition to the airfoil curvature, etc)
What sorts of tricks have you guys used in this sort of situation? Worst case, I figure I can just drill oversize and fill with epoxy, but I'd like to at least minimize that.
Thanks!
Warren
The Jodel has a bolt on each side of the wing at the trailing edge that goes vertically through the root ribs and then through the lower fuselage longerons (all wood construction). I'm fitting a new wing to an existing fuselage, and have to figure out how to make holes through the ribs that will line up with the existing holes in the fuselage longerons.
Drilling down using the holes in the longerons isn't possible for two reasons - there is a diagonal right above the hole location that prevents getting a drill into the hole from the top, and the outer edge of the hole is only about 0.100 inch from the inside of the ply skin.
I have some optimism that I can use dowel centers to locate the holes on the top surface of the ribs. I have less optimism that I can match the angle of the holes (the fuselage isn't perfect - the holes aren't exactly the same angle on both sides, the bottom surface of the fuselage isn't necessarily flat, the top surface of the ribs has ply gussets in addition to the airfoil curvature, etc)
What sorts of tricks have you guys used in this sort of situation? Worst case, I figure I can just drill oversize and fill with epoxy, but I'd like to at least minimize that.
Thanks!
Warren
