Here are the pages to the wings, fuel tanks, ailerons, and flaps.

When I first started this project, looking at a pile of parts this large seemed overwhelming. Now it is just getting fun. It still is impressive that I will take all this and turn it into a couple wings...

Unfortunately I did not take any pictures during the spar prep. These pictures are after the fact. The prep consists primarily of installing platenuts, countersinking the spar for tank attach holes and inspection plates, and fabricating the tie down attach brackets. 

Some notes of interest, purchase a 1/2" #30 countersink bit for the tank attach holes. The holes open up quite a bit, and the 3/8" may not be wide enough. Make sure the platenuts are riveted in place to provide a guide for the pilot of the countersink bit. During the countersinking, the bit will seem to do a terrible job, and just at the very end, it sets in the platenut to smooth out the countersink just in time. The countersink bit will get fairly dull after two wings worth, so having a second one around does not hurt.

When the instructions suggest to mount the tie down brackets, only bolt the tie down bracket with the two upper and two lower bolts. The aileron bell crank brackets should be left off at this point. When the skins are in place, they would need to be removed later in order to install the rest of the bell crank.

I learned the hard way that you shouldn't rivet the rear spar prior to the front spar. It makes it more difficult to rivet to the main spar when the machine head of the rivets are place on the rib.

On the left I am drilling the wing doubler, which is underneath the wing skin. This provides more support for walking in and out of the cockpit. The rest of the pictures are the match drilling of the various left wing skins. On the right you can see Jenna drilling her first holes. She was driving the trigger and I helped keep it in position. She learned very quick, and even figured out that it was easier to pull the drill out of the hole when it is spinning. Amazing.

I am installing a Gretz Aero pitot mount for a heated pitot tube. The mount is part of a install kit that can be purchased separately from the pitot. The only thing not included in the kit is the angle to the rib. I just cut up a spare VS rib which was already pre-bent with holes in the flange. I located it in the bay just outboard the aileron bell crank. The heating unit of this particular pitot is a constant resistance heater, consuming a max, continuous 8 amps current during operation.

The second set of pictures show the results of the pitot tube line install. There were interference issues with the bellcrank, but nothing a little tweaking couldn't fix. For the attach to the pitot, I left enough room for the shell to slide inside, allowing the pitot tube to be installed without having to bend the pitot line much.

I was originally planning to install an AOA device, but decided that a simple stall warning device would satisfy my goals, and at a much lower cost. It is a Reddish stall warner, and can be purchased from Aircraft Spruce.

The leading edge ribs are rather difficult to rivet. As can be seen in the second picture, the rivets are very close to the lower rib. This required modifying the double offset tip by grounding a flat side, unless you are lucky enough to borrow one. With help from a builder who has been here already, we were able to drive rivets in all locations, but it was a challenge. The skin rivets were relatively easy, as they just get squeezed. The tank is also attached at this point to prepare for riveting the top skins. It won't be long before this comes off the jig.

Another big milestone, the top skins are riveted! It will now come off the jig and into the wing cradle built from Vans plans. There were somewhere around 500+ rivets in these two skins which took a few sessions to accomplish. As can be seen in the second picture, the last five rivets along the rear spar need to be bucked with a bucking bar similar to the one seen. I tried squeezing them with absolutely no success.

Here are the aileron and flap attach brackets being match drilled and riveted to the rear spar. The flap bracket was a bit confusing as it gets riveted to the rear spar now, but the bottom skins get riveted prior to flap attachment. That means that it needed to be match drilled to the skin now, and countersunk for mating with the dimples in the skin. The flap hinge will only have holes. This little detail was missing in my builders manual, but there have been many who have been here before to offer help on the e-mail lists.

* Be sure to follow the rivet callouts with the brackets. The lowest rivet on both aileron brackets is a flush rivet to provide clearance with the aileron. I figured it out the hard way...

The hardest part about riveting the bottom skins is the rear spar. It makes one wish they riveted the bottom skins on first... We started out riveting the rear spar from the root all the way to the fourth rib, just to the end of wing walk ribs. From there it was on to the second, third and fourth ribs working from the rear spar to main spar in an L-shaped pattern. You need to be careful to leave enough holes open at an angle so the skin can be peeled back to get at the rear spar rivets along the way. The bays with the inspection plates are fairly simple, just don't finish them before riveting the rear spar of the next outboard bay each time. It was slow going, but it did get a bit easier as time went on.

It sure is great to have the wings completed. Now onto the fuselage...