Cotton Waiex 191 - N191YX

[Rynoth]

How is the fuse coming along? I've hit the time-sink that is the main wing spars, 40 hours in on the left spar and yet to hammer a rivet. Since you ordered the pre-built spars I imagine you may catch up with me soon...

[Bryan Cotton]

Ryan,
The fuselage is paused while I add two 2' wings on either side of my table. There is a lesson to those that follow me: build a 10' table. I would be glad to catch you with my prebuilt spars, if I can!

[Bryan Cotton]

I cut the slots for the ruddervator pushrods in the aft skin tonight. Cut the two 1 3/4" holes with a holesaw then cut between them with a dremel and cutoff wheel.

I clecoed the two skins together and holesawed both skins at once. I think one at a time would have been smarter but it came out ok.

[Rynoth]

Bryan, take note that the smaller hole cutouts for the rudder cables are in different locations on each side. I didn't actually realize this was the case when I cut them (even though I cut them correctly, seperately) and had a small (big?) panic much later when the fuselage was together and I noticed that holes were offset for the first time.

[Sonex1517]

While I am building a Sonex and not a Waiex - what Ryan said is correct.

I now have a larger rudder cable cutout on one side than it should be due to a similar mistake....

[Bryan Cotton]

Thanks guys - I did notice that one but I have missed those details before!

Too bad Sonex does not automatically cut in the Waiex holes and then provide the straight tail guys with a patch kit. :)

[Rynoth]

Bryan, go to plans page WIX-F21 and in the upper left of the page, highlight the 40" dimension for the width of the forward end of the aft fuselage. I'll explain below. You're probably a few weeks from this page but I want you to catch it.

For me everything fit together so great with the laser cut holes, it didn't bother me that it took a little bit of effort to slide in the upper vertical splice plates between the cross tie box and the upper longeron. I didn't pay enough attention to that 40" dimension and ended up with about 40.25" and a slight outward bow in my upper longerons at the front. The problem is a very small contact area between the front side of the cross tie box and the upper vertical splice plate. This contact area pushes everything slightly wider than it should be. A very small amount of filing (about 1/8" depth along a 1/2" edge of sheet aluminum) on that contact area on the cross tie box would have made everything come out correctly. What I'm describing will make more sense once you've made it to that page.

Coincidentally, I will need to do quite a bit of dissassembly in that area due to the recall of my upper horizontal splice plate and I'll have the opportunity to fix this.

Additionally, when making the cross tie box on WIX-F24, the plans don't show the hole patterns pre-drilled in the forward and aft sides of the box. I can't recall exactly how the holes appear on both parts, but the part that has 5? holes at each end needs to be mounted 1) to the rear and 2) with the holes closer to the bottom. Mine went in upside down and I got to drill new holes to fit the clips to the side skins.

[Bryan Cotton]

Thanks Ryan, I will note that.

[Bryan Cotton]

Fairleads riveted in. Will be drilling the longeron angles soon.

[Rynoth]

I did my sides separately and learned that the fairleads may obstruct the rivets to the side skin. I ended up drilling out my rivets on the fairleads on the left side to set the side skin rivets first, and on the right fairlead I still had to remove some phenolic material to clear the set side skin rivets.