Chapter 20 – Winglets attached

Starting off this morning, I inserted nails into the end of each wing to support the winglets since currently the winglet and wing only contact each other at the edges of their cut lines.

As I remounted the winglets, I of course ensured and verified that the A (102.15″), B (108.35″) and C (118.35″) dimensions were all spot on.

Here we have the “B” dimension on the left winglet.

I will note that after all the machinations to secure the winglets to the wings (hot glue, Bondo, wood pieces, and 3′ stick), on the right winglet my B dimension was at 108.32″, so 0.03″ shy of my 108.35″ target.  As per plans, our tolerance is within 0.05″ so I’m good.  Not of course what I was shooting for or wanted, but the winglet is securely mounted and only about 1/32″ off the mark… I’ll take it.

I also grabbed a closer shot of the threaded spacing standoff for the outboard side of the right winglet.

I started working in the late afternoon in an attempt to beat the sun going all the way down to convert the fuselage dolly (below left) and the wing dolly (below right) into dollies that can support the wings, inverted with the winglets attached.  My goal height on these temporary conversions was 50″.

I the rolled right into making a 10 minute project update video that shows the status of the strakes, ailerons and winglets.  My phone was near dead so I used an old video camera that I thought was good, but the video quality turned out not so good.  Anyway, here’s the video:

Like I mentioned on the video, a few hours after I shot it my girlfriend Jessica helped me remove the right wing and flip it onto the temporarily heightened fuselage dolly.  As you can see, there is only a couple inches clearance under the top of the inverted winglet.

Tomorrow I plan to get to work on the right winglet in prep for the inside corner layups, but also plan to remove the left wing/winglet and get it onto the heightened/temp converted wing dolly as well.

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