Ok so I ignored the build log for a month. But I have a good excuse. I am actually getting some good hours in on the project without sacrificing family or job time… mostly. Anyway, in my last post I was about to take a week off from work in mid-June to finally focus on the QB wings. I had the optimistic idea that I could get them nearly finished with an 80-hour week put toward the project instead of the 80 hour week I’d put in at the real job. Well I probably only logged about 30 hours in the garage that week and in reality the QB wings at my pace is more like 120 hours worth of work. Still I am making great head way and as of mid July I am closing out a lot of the wing work. Without further ado on to the progress:
With the bellcrank bushing drilled out and the metal prep work finished on the aileron mounts, I started by riveting the aileron mounts together and then on the wing. I have the left a few of the rivets undone as I wasn’t able to squeeze them. After butchering a couple of bucked rivets, I decided to order 4″ yoke to get to these rivets later.
Next up I prepped the aileron and flap braces and matched drilled them to the structure.
The aileron brace fitted and drilled
A down the line shot of the flap brace ready for priming.
Onto the control arms. There are two on each wing. A small steel one connects aileron to the bellcrank. A larger aluminum control rod connects the bellcrank to the center fuse control columns. First, I laid out where the hole needed to be drilled using painter tape to mark the circumference and then evenly divding that for the two rivets on the steel rods or the 6 pop rivets on each end of the aluminum arms. The V-block and some boelube on the drill press made quick work of the drilling.
Measure the circumference then divide by 6 and mark the tape.
Using the V-block to assist in drilling the holes.
Then I matched drill the rod end in place.
I left the riveting till later so I could move on to installing the steel mounting brackets on the ailerons and flaps. These were pretty straight forward, though I used a combination of drill press and match drilling to ensure good line up and clean holes for the all the bolts.
After temp. mounting the ailerons, I got out the primer for the flap and aileron braces and mounts. Done and done. Now onto the flap hinges. I took some time to line up the ailerons into neutral position use the wood stringer and tool hole method Van’s suggests in the instructions. This way I was able to fit the hinge and allow for the 1/4″ space between flap and aileron edges. With that mark on both wings, I could line the hinge up accurately and drill at the holes out.
Priming: The bittersweet moment of building. It means your close to assembling something but it's a PITA.
With that out of the way, I worked on countersinking the flap brace. There’s a small curve ball  for the QB wings at the root end of each wing. The standard build instructions spec universal head rivets but with the QB they want us to use flush rivets. I emailed Van’s. Joe said to just follow the instructions for my kit. OK flush cherry max it is. I couldn’t tell you why though.
Next up more riveting on the braces, finishing out the control rods and getting all the washers and spacers in place.