Skinning continued with the bottom skins to the point of needing to cut the inspection holes. I continued to use the router method. I made patterns for the holes in the wing skins, the inspection rings and the inspection covers. Double sided carpet tape sticks the pattern to the aluminum. I made a “station” for routing that contained the flying chips to a relatively small area to clean up.

Here’s the inspection hole pattern attached to a wing skin and prepped with a 1” hole to allow clean entry of the router bit.

 The skin is supported on multiple 2x4’s to keep the router bit from digging in to anything beneath the skin.

Bottom skin with all holes completed.

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I primed all the faying surfaces of all skins with epoxy primer after dimpling. Ready for riveting!

Putting all the skins on for the final time felt good. After checking one last time for square and plumb the riveting began. Two great friends and fellow EAA Chapter 780 members; who happen to be prior RV builders with vast riveting experience; were my riveting partners. Their knowledge and experience was greatly appreciated by this novice builder!

The top skins went on first in the riveting order suggested by Pat and Carol Fagen. Closing up the nose section is tight but can be done easily by any double-jointed circus performer. I, on the other hand, required several ibuprofens to recover.

After running transfer fuel lines and wiring as needed through the wiring chase, the bottom skins were riveted on. Fuel tank cover nutplates were installed, inspection cover support rings were riveted and the main fuel lines were fitted. This wing is ready to come out of the jig and go back to the build table to fit the control surfaces.