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Robin’s Wing Rebuild

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Robin Tripp

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Took the port wing off the wall to stop the fabric and remove the aileron hardware for paint. As I have come to expect, it has been educational. The hinges are of Firebolt design, but with Skybolt dimensions. They are so perfectly equal, they are factory like. The push rods are also Firebolt style. The port one is bent, so I am going to replace them both with Skybolt style. The aircrafts last flight had ended with a belly flop into a field, so no surprise on the damage.

The inboard hinge was a little loose and when I removed it I found hiding under the paint that four of five rivets had sheared. Also one of the holes was elongated, as was it’s corresponding hole in the spar. I believe that was an assembly error as the other three holes are perfect. I am quite happy to strip the paint, do a dye penetrant check and replace the rivets, but am unsure about the elongation. Drill it out to round and move up in bolt size, or source some new material and start over? Likewise the spar, drill out, put in a plug and re-drill, or just go up in size along with the aluminum.
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