Yesterday I did a little shop cleanup. Not a lot, just enough to get done what I wanted to do. I cut a length of 3/4″ x 3/4″ pine and cut a bunch of 1-1/2″ blocks for the second rib jig. I got the work bench partially cleared off. The box from the R/C Cub went underneath, and the plans sheet and wings were moved to one end of the bench. I now have roughly half the bench covered by model airplane wings, while the other half is being used to build the real thing. ‘Murica, as my kids would say.
So, I built the second wing rib jig. I used the first rib from the first jig and blocked everything up. I used some plastic sheet Lisa had picked up underneath it to prevent the glue sticking things together. When it was all finished, I mixed up 20cc of epoxy and glued up two ribs. That’s going to work as long as it stays cold, but the glue was gelling by the time I was finished. If it warms up at all there won’t be time to do two at a time, unless I can find a way to pre-glue the capstrip grooves a lot faster. I wonder if thinning out a portion of the T-88 and brushing it into the grooves would work. For that matter, I wonder if pre-gluing the grooves is even necessary.
This morning I pulled both ribs from the jigs. You can’t tell them apart, and you can’t tell them from the other four I had done. Any differences between the six ribs I have done are slight enough they can be removed by sanding. So, now I can double my production rate.