Chili Breeze- making ribs

[Frank v B]

Making ribs for a double tapered wing:

Most plans show a root rib and a tip rib for cutting foam wing cores.  In this case I photo copied the two ribs, glued them onto a piece of plywood and cut them out.  Line up the slots for the top and bottom spar (in this case 1/4" square balsa) and drill two holes, one ahead of the spar and one behind.  I used two brass tubes with wheel collars as a fastener.

The Chili Breeze needs 22 ribs.

photo 1- stack 22 blank pieces of 1/16" balsa between the root and tip ribs and drill two holes through.  Slide the brass tubes into the two holes and tighten the wheel collars.

photo 2- rough cut the leading edge and trailing edge with a (razor) saw. 

photo 3- rough cut the outline of the ribs.  I used a razor plane.

photo 4- Use a sanding block to fine sand down to the plywood end ribs.

photo 5- cut the spar slots.  I used a razor saw to cut the sides of the 1/4" main spar slot. You can use an #11 blade if you don't have a saw.   One cut in the middle and the pieces fall away.

photo 6- the stack of ribs with the spar slots cut out

photo 7- Mark one of the spar slots with a black magic marker.  When building, use all the ribs with the black slots up so the ribs will be identical.  This assumes reality- you may not have a totally symmetrical set of ribs.

photo 8- Separate the ribs and double them up.  Cut the leading edge and trailing edge straight so they will be equal length.  Hold the two ribs and sand then so they are identical.  Because they were made in a stack, no two ribs will be the same size.  By taking 2 and making them equal they will ensure the left and right wing panels will be the same.

photo 9 - mark each rib from 1-10 plus the centre ribs (CL).  Separate them into two equal stacks. Start building the wing.

Total elapsed time for making 22 ribs was 20 minutes.

Frank

ps: Jack knows the achievement is not making 22 ribs but getting the photos onto a forum post.   Thanks Tom (my son).

[Ededge2002]

but its only 2 3/4" wingspan??  Seems rather small Frank.....

[Frank v B]

Ed,

Oh, ****.  I knew something looked weird. 

I figure it will generate enough lift at 320 km/hr.     Lemme check "selecting power systems" done by another TEMAC member.

Frank