Building An Airplane From Plans
We decided to remake a nose rib for the vertical stabilizer. Here is what we have learned
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Need to trim the front off and clean it up. Basic forming time is five mintes or less. Of course it took us a few ribs to figure the process out.
Not really sure of the specific date of this work, let’s just say it was between Feb and May 2011. Dan I and wanted to have access to the vert stab tip in case we wanted to put a position light or an antenna later on. Dan found some light weight plastic electrical conduit that he heated up to put a bend in to go from the bottom rib to the top rib.
Worsk great, now hoe to make the tip removable. One method uses an upside down rib attached to the top rib so you have a flange to put nut plates on. Dan thought of a different solution of making a sheetmetal strip that goes between the skin and the top rib and it projects up to allow a flange for the tip to attach. I’ll try and find a better picture:
The vert stab top rib is on the bottom, the new strip is on the outside and the stip extends up under the fiberglass tip. A great feature of this solution is that it supports the nose of the tip all the way around. Here is the back end of the tip
Here is Dan holding the complete assembly.
So the fiberglass tip will butt up against the skin instead of going under it. Dan did a fantastic job of mating these to edges.
Where the silver clecos are above we will have nutplates behind the stip so washer head screws will secure the tip on.
Here is the horizontal alignment and end alignment with the rudder
