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Sailplane Construction Article Session #16

Before I began with the spars, I added a 1/16" plywood doubler on the back side of the leading edge at the center section as shown below.

 

 
Next I made the two main spars. The 1/8" X 1/2" forward spar was cut from a 1/8" sheet of hard balsa. The 1/4" X 7/16" aft spar was made by laminating a strip of 1/16" X 1/4" balsa to a strip of 1/4" X 3/8" balsa. These were glued and pinned down along the edge of the work table as shown below.
 
 
 
The locations of the full ribs were marked on these two spars and the ribs were slid onto them to form the interior basket structure of the stab as shown below.
 
 
 
It was real exercise in patience going back and forth getting all of the ends of this structure into their respective position for gluing. However, I finally got it all to fit after a number of trials as shown below.
 
 
 
I just tacked glued the structure in place with CA because now I will have to separate part of the stab's aft structure for the elevator halves. There was probably a better approach to the elevators than the way I am doing this, but I couldn't come up with one. It will be interesting to see how all of this turns when I cut away the aft portion of the stab at the aft spar. However, I am driving out to Flower Mound, Texas, today to take my daughter to lunch so I will not do much on the stab today...................................Tandy 


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