Once again, no pictures. But, finally a few hours progress. I managed to deburr and dimple the main ribs and the j-stiffeners for the top skins.

Next session will be deburring and dimpling the top skins, which may take a while. Lots-o-holes…

It’s been kind of slow around here regarding building time. The day job is sucking all my time, as well as just plain sucking…

This weekend I managed to get about 5 hours in on the top skins. Match-drilled left and right top skins. Also countersunk the inboard nutplate holes and all the wing walk doubler holes.

Up next is a boat-load of deburring and dimpling before riveting the top skins on…

Tops skins are on and ready to be match drilled. Unfortunately, when placing the J-stiffeners on, it seems I messed up the drilling of those holes in an earlier step. Not sure what I did as that was a while ago. Oh well, new stiffeners on order. I’ll just match drill them in place when they get here. Similar to how the tailcone stiffeneres were done. Should work out fine.

Finished up the rear spars. Lots of rivets in the doublers. Took about one hour per wing. Luckily I was able to squeeze all the rivets except those for the aileron brackets.

Now comes the top skins.

Total for Rear Spars: 9 hours Total for Wings So Far: 152.5 hours

Really moving along this week with the extra set of hands around. The main ribs are now on the spars. Planned out the wire runs months ago and all the necessary holes have been placed in the ribs. The pieces you see sticking up and to the left are the flap brackets.

After getting the left tank to the same stage as the right, the vent lines and fuel float senders were installed.

Brad’s out here for the week for a building vacation. Things are going much quicker with a second set of hands around.

The tanks were closed up after that and are now complete. Here’s a shot of the completed tanks. Just waiting for the proseal to cure before doing a leak test.

Total for Fuel Tanks: 49 hours Total for Wings So Far: 143.5 hours

I’ve uploaded my first cut at the main power distribution diagram for N428RV. It’s basically a modified Z-12 Single Battery Dual Alternator from the Aeroelectric Connection. Thanks Bob for all your service to the Owner Built and Maintained (OBAM) community.

The diagram is available HERE.

Ok, finally took a first cut at the panel layout. This most likely won’t be the final design. There are many things missing from this initial layout. No switches, indicator lights, etc. So take it as it is.

In place of the AI is a Dynon D10A, but epanelbuilder.com did not have the new seven inch display (EFIS-D100) which is probably what I’ll go with.

Center (top-down) is an Avidyne EX5000, Garmin GMA 340 Audio Panel, Garmin GNS 430 GPS/NAV/COM, and a Garmin SL30 NAV/COM. I want to have room for the Garmin GTX 327 Transponder at the bottom of the same stack, but no room, so for now it’s under the AF-2500 engine monitor. If I go with one of the composite panels available today, then I can place the transponder lower on the center console. We’ll see. To the right of that is the Mountain High 4-Place oxygen system along with the ELT indicator.

I’m sure some of this will change, but I think the majority of these systems will be what I go with.

Ok, couldn’t put it off any longer. Started sealing up the tanks. First up is scuffing the contact areas to promote better ProSeal adheasion. Also, a hint from Dan Checkoway’s site is putting electrical tape where the main ribs will go before doing the stiffeners. This will prevent having to clean any overspill of proseal later when doing the ribs.

Next the stiffeners and the drain flange are riveted in place using ProSeal on all the contact areas. Also put some ProSeal on the the shop side of the rivets. All this to prevent fuel leaks. I used tank dimple dies to give more space for the ProSeal.

Next up was the fuel cap flange. Lots of ProSeal around this for leak prevention. The little clip is a retainer for the fuel vent line that will go in later.

First couple ribs in place. Lots of ProSeal on the outter edges. I need to go back and clean these up again after I get all the ribs in place. A little more ProSeal and some nasty M.E.K. to clean up the edges.

It takes about 1.5 to 2 hours just to do a couple ribs. The process takes a while. Mixing the ProSeal, applying, riveting, then the long process of cleaning up all the ProSeal on your tools and rivets.

Started the fuel tanks this weekend. Lots of stiffeners and attach brackets to trim and deburr. Took a while. All the stiffeners are clecoed and match drilled.

Got each of the tanks assembled and match drilled. The ribs are really a pain in the @&%#* to get inserted in these skins. I finally got some good advice from the mailing list to get them clecoed in BEFORE inserting the skins in the cradles. This worked better, but it was still tight.

Time to rip them all apart and deburr and dimple.