First rib fit

cjensen · Post by **cjensen** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 9:54 am

i had that night last night! i got to FINALLY fit the ribs for the first time. i did it as an extra step to carify and verify for myself, which side of the ribs are the top sides. for some reason, i couldn't picture it in my head, so i just cleco'd them on, and figured it out (after i figured out that i had all the ribs on the right wing mis-marked, and sat there and starred at it for twenty minutes wondering WHY IN THE WORLD vans would've sent me two sets of left wing ribs!!! they didn't, of course...). this was done so i could mark and drill the holes for wiring conduit.

after i marked orientation...

...it was back to naked spars.

anyway, fun night!!

captain_john · Post by **captain_john** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 7:39 pm

Lookin great, Chad!!!

Have fun with all those ribs!!!

CJ

cjensen · Post by **cjensen** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 9:17 pm

thankfully, all those ribs are done except final drilling the conduit hole and priming. i spent two weeks and about 12 hours on those ribs!!

captain_john · Post by **captain_john** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 7:53 am

...and they STILL aren't done!!!

Incredible the amount of time they take!

OH, the MONOTONY!!!

Just think, some people make them from SCRATCH!!! How do they get an airplane done in a lifetime??

CJ

prestwich · Post by **prestwich** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 12:26 pm

captain_john wrote:

Just think, some people make them from SCRATCH!!! How do they get an airplane done in a lifetime??

CJ

I recently met a man who built an aluminum airplane from scratch. I'm sorry to say I don't remember the name of it. He learned to work aluminum from a man who used to go door-to-door selling custom made cookware. The woman of the house would say, sure, I'll take a pot of such and such dimensions, and the guy would go out into his van and hammer one out on the spot.

Anyway, this fellow with the plane, started when he was 25 and finished when he was 62 IIRC. After he had completed the wings according to the original plans, someone came up with an improved wing design for that plane, so he started over with the new design.