Well, today was a big day in the garage, made possible by my new garage fan! It was still pretty hot, but the moving air made it bearable.

I started by finishing the prep on the rear spar and getting it riveted to the ribs. After that, I right-sided the spar and got to countersinking all the skin attach holes.

I have no idea what this picture shows, but I guess I’m ready for skins.

Yup, that must be it. Here’s the spar flange primed.

It’s time for skins. A long time ago I edge-finished, dimpled, and primed the main win skins (and the wingwalk doubler). This photo shows that I’m remembering to put the wingwalk doubler underneath the top main wing skin.

And after a few (many) clecos, both top main skins (on the right wing) are on!

I threw both right wing tanks on the spar and screwed them down with about every other #8 screw. The wing was perfectly aligned at this point, and I decided to use the now-useless leading edge skin to fabricate what I’m calling the ER tank access panel. The dremel helped me get close, then I used a file and a scotchbrite wheel to edge-finish.

This is the general idea.

To do that, I needed to prep the interface strip. Here’s the strip with some #8 nutplates halfway-riveted.

I’ve just set the outboard strip into the gap. You can see where the #8 screw dimples will align.

Here’s the inboard interface strip installed (we’re looking at the bottom of the right wing.

So this ~4.125″ piece was cut from the right leading edge. I put the skin under the outboard skin, but clecoed it to the inboard skin, and used my sharpie for a “perfect” line.

Then a trial fit.

Dang. There’s a little more of a gap than I want. But I’m going to massage it into the middle of the gap and it should look fine.

Long day. 4.0 hours. 2.0 on the spars, 1.0 on the wing in general, and 1.0 counted against the ER Tanks.

45 rivets on the rear spar, 18 rivets on some of the ribs to main spar, and 28 rivets on the right wing’s inboard interface strip.

And some blood. Don’t forget to edge-finish, folks.