Building Aero 3D Day 31: Sheeting Wing Begins

Wednesday we started the process of sheeting the wing. Prior to actually sheeting we went over the whole wing doing some sanding, removing any excess glue gobs, rough edges, etc. making sure everything was finished as best we could. This is to make sure the sheeting sits down properly and eliminate as many covering issues/bumps as we can.

Once that was done we trial fitted how we wanted the first set of balsa sheets (W-SH-1, ³/₃₂ “, 4″x62”) to fit. Based on the diagram (Wing Step 3) the butt joint isn’t in the center, so we used a full sheet for the first part and then will trim the excess (seen in the bottom & top images) from the second sheet.

The steps then went as follows:

• Marked approximately where the first sheet will fold back to on the ribs and over to on the main spar
• Applied wood glue to the top of the ribs and spars the first sheet is going to cover
• Applied wood glue to the leading edge of the first piece of sheeting
• Placed the leading edge down and against the wings leading edge
• Pinned in place
• Used a damp cloth to wet the wood (makes it pliable)
• Folded back the sheeting and pinned it down in the middle of the sheet
• Worked our way to the outside and then inside
• Since where the dowel assembly is was to hard for pins we clamped the sheeting down to ensure contact
• Applied weights to keep the sheeting down properly

We then moved on to the next piece of sheeting and repeated the process with the addition of the following step:

• Applying glue to the edges of the two sheets where the butt joint is going to be (seen in image below)

You can also see that there is a gap where the scarf joint of the leading edge is. We will need to fill this gap later.

You can see in the other images below how we weighted the sheets down for the glue to dry and how I improvised the use of a sanding tool to keep the jar of pasta sauce from rolling away. 🙂

• 

• 

• 

At this point we were hooped again and needed to let things dry before continuing. The next morning I removed all the weights and pins. You can see how things are looking in the featured image.