The Long EZ Build: Aft inboard ribs

I put this step off until the center section spar was installed... mainly because I wasn't looking forward to this step of Chapter 19. It requires (and I quote from the plans) "surgery".

First, I had to read the plans 6845354681351 times to understand what is happening here.

So after studying the drawings, and making a few assumptions.. I discarded the "core" of the aft inboard rib and began conducting the required "surgery".

This is the left wing... upside down. I used a knife to remove most of the foam... but was then left with a bunch of micro on the fiberglass... this needed to be removed.

Using a dremel, I sanded the micro off. Much easier said then done! Especially in the tight space!

The plans don't specify how to trim the aft end of the rib. So I went through a bunch of pics that I have taken over the years at airshows and just made a transition from rib to wing... sort of like making a mold for a bow of a ship... think of a bathtub with a rounded "V" corner...

0.6" on top and bottom for a nice glass-to-glass bond...

After a lot of carving, sanding, prepping, micro scraping, cursing the canard gods, etc... it was time to cut some BID. I love how the plans then say "now layup a 3-ply rib in the entire area"... as if it were that simple!

Origami time! I now had to figure out how to best cut the fiberglass so it would fit inside the shell and fold/overlap properly. I came up with the following shape. The black lines are cut lines..

Fold along the red dashed lines... and I get a rib!

So I cut 3 of these ribs out (layup #7)... and the UND strips with LWA 7 (layup #8) since those get applied while layup #7 is still wet:

Ok, it's go time! Plain epoxy on the cured fiberglass, slurry on the foam, dry micro to fill the voids, flox around LWA 6, etc...

I didn't bother to carve out the local section for the CS132L belhorn for now... I didn't know how much to remove so I will remove it later with a dremel and do a small BID patch when it comes time to install the aileron pushrods.

All hands were busy installing the origami ribs, so I did not take pictures of the actual layups. Long story short, I used a brush to "tuck" the ribs in place.

After all 3 ribs were installed, I applied the 3 UNI strips over LWA6, installed LWA7 over them, and clamped it in place. I used a small piece of peel-ply over LWA7 to prevent the clamp from bonding to it.

I should note here that I did the left wing (port wing) horizontal and the right wing (starboard wing) vertically - it was MUCH easier with the wing in the vertical position (shown below) since it helped lay the ribs without them falling over! Lesson learned.