Photo by Mike Hostage
Marske Pioneer Wing Construction Online Builders Manual 3
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| Tip Mounts : deviated from plans! Made a female mounting tube and sandwiched it in between the cap strips of the main spar. Then, made female pin mounts for the leading and trailing edges (these are buried in the blocks you see at the rear of the leading edge spar and the front face of the trailing edge spar).
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op Skin Clamp : Top skins had the most significant curvature and required even clamping to get good glue joint. Ripped a 2X4 with the same angle as the angle of the top surface, at the face of the leading edge spar. When this angled piece was set upon the skin (as it lay in place on the leading edge spar) the top surface of the ripped 2X4 was level, which allowed the C-clamp to work without slipping off. To keep the angled 2X4 from scooting forward and falling off the front of the assembly (due to the tightening of the C-clamps), I mounted a chain from the bottom piece of ripped 2X4, around the spars and up to the back of the ripped 2X4 on top of the wing. Make sure and use a spacer block so the chain doesn’t mess up the skin that extends past the back of the spar. This chain kept the two clamping strips (the ripped 2X4) in place over the leading edge. Then I simply put the glue on the ribs and leading edge and clamped in place. Remember, the first step was to glue the skin to the spar and let it dry! This fixed the skin from sliding around when you bent it to fit the ribs. I didn’t need to heat the plywood at all, the 3/32" aircraft grade ply made the curve easily.
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| Leading Edge : With top and bottom surfaces covered, there was no easy way to clamp the non-structural leading edge strip in place, for gluing. I used wood screws, temporarily drilled ¼" into the leading edge spar. Once dry, I removed screws and plugged them with with dowels. See lesson learned about doweling.
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| LE Dowels : Once leading edge is dry, remove the wood screws and plugholes with dowels. Method provided good tight glue joint for leading edge piece, but I should have made my own plugs from the same material as the leading edge piece. Instead, I used hardwood dowels that I had on hand. These swell and change shape at a different rate than the leading edge piece and, over time, the dowels don't stay perfectly flush. Causes me some loss of aerodynamic efficiency! When I recover, I plan to drill them out and replace with basswood, like I used for the leading edge.
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| Airfoil : using airfoil templates to carve leading edge to shape. Make sure to fill ALL seams, dents, gaps and the like, before you cover.
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| Jigged and Rigged : wings are ready to cover! Now work begins in earnest on the fuselage and control mechanisms.
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| Strt Tip : made removable conventional wingtips to mate to the mounting tube and pins
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| Winglet : scaled a Masek designed winglet for my wingtips. Here you can see the male tube and pins that mate to the mounting points in the previous photo.
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