Nope, other side. Wheel taco was from going into knee high grass on the diagonal.

All this talk of tacos is making me want them for lunch.


Wheels

Okay, so let's summarize the damage:

Prop:



Gear:



Left upper wing:



Gun/center section:



Right lower wing:



Bonk to the rudder:



So, order a new prop, buy a decent dial meter for the engine, get some oval tubing from Robert for the gear, strip the two wings, replace the spars, strip, un-bonk the rudder, recover, paint, write it all up in the logs, and take back up into the air.

Now that's it's two degrees cooler than Hell, let's get to work!

First up, the good news! The engine dialed out at .009, and turned over fine without plugs in (in case there was oil in the cylinders), and then gave a brief bark of life when they were put back in. Since I drained the oil I didn't let her run.

I'll mount the prop once the gear is repaired and see if it tracks okay. If not, well, gonna have to tear it down. Oil was clean, though, so fingers crossed.

Anyhow, let's get on with stripping that lower wing! For those who have never had the life experience of skinning a catfish, well the starter version of that is pulling fabric off of a wing! It even feels like catfish skin!



It was simple as could be, after I drilled out the rib stitching rivets, sliced along the inside edge of leading edge, and just peeled it down over the rear bow, worked it down the leading edge, and off.

Fabric is a kind of leathery stuff and folded up nicely.



Drill rivets, drill more rivets, and then some more and the leading edge comes off. The wing is great shape over all, but it's not hard to see where the bend is, just at the compression strut.



So my plan to detach the ribs, cut the drag/anti-drag wires, pull off the spar, make identical holes in the new spar, slide it in, lock it down, put the leading edge back on, cover and paint looks doable.

Other great news - guess what came in the mail today!



I think it looks even better than the first one!

the new prop looks cherry.

I agree. The new prop looks better.

Let me know if you want me to fly up and assist.

You have the patience of a saint!

Hope the repairs go quickly.


Wheels

Man, that look like a fun little bird. Sometimes, when I was in my Sonex and I'd see the guys in my club having so much fun in their ultr-lites, that I'd wish I'd gotten something that I could fly low and slow in. We're never happy are we?
Can't wait to see some pictures of you in the skies with it.

Well, there are a few videos with a camera attached to it...

As to the question of how hard I was pushing the right pedal to try and keep it on the runway, here's the pedal stop bolt:

Someone ate his Wheaties that day.


Wheels

Off to Atlanta Monday to pick up replacement spars...they didn't have what I need locally, dammit.

Were you able to go up and get the parts?


Wheels

Yep. Replaced lower wing spar this morning and re-attached the ribs. Drag/anti-drag wires and leading edge go back on tomorrow.

The ovalized tubing for the gear arrived today as well!

Tomorrow it's finishing the lower wing and working on the upper. Hopefully I can get it all the way to putting on the leading edg, which needs some TLC; it got some crinkles in it that have to be pounded out.

Then strip and re-cover the rudder.

I'll re-cover the wings at the same time, and then paint them concurrently.

I'm working out the best way to repair the gear, specifically what's the best way to suspend the aircraft so I can work on it. I'm leaning on putting the tail on a square block and just lifting the nose by some straps and my engine lift.

Since I'm improving things, I'm going to deal with that tail wheel as well. I settled on bolting some square stock around the tube so that the control horn is flush with a flat surface rather than a round tube.

Let's get to work!

So that spar was only slightly bent; I am being just nit-picky on the decision to replace it.



The advantage of putting all the plan stuff onto the MDF boards I bought is that they can come in handy for repairs:



So mark, drill, slip back between the ribs, drill, rivet, and spend far too long figuring out a way to tighten the drag/anti-drag wires.



For the leading edge, I used copious amounts of rubber mallet to get any of the big creases out, riveted down the bottom (the rivet holes matched up!), and used a specialized aviation tools to hold the top down into shape.



Ready for cover!

Gotta love those specialized aviation tools.

I hear some have even been used for diving weights in NYC Harbor.

Lol, I am looking all around his picture for Cleco fasteners and I completely missed the concrete block.


Wheels

Ha! Cleco fasteners cost money and are only temporary. Therefore, I didn't use any.

Upper wing spar replaced, wires put in, ribs reattached, and I started on the leading edge when every battery for my drill was dead.

So there she sits with cinder blocks on boards holding the leading edge over waiting on me to show up tomorrow morning.

I'm also going one step further in non-authentic stuff in that I am going to put some square tubing for the cross bar of the gear rather than a round tube. It just seems more robust in my mind. The sorts of people who will spot it and might say something about it being inaccurate probably know better than to say something about it.

I decided to stick with the band brake system after a long conversation with the Nieuport guru association; they suggested moving the handle either to the side or some place on the stick where it is away from my hand on take off (you can guess what they think happened). That would mean making a new control stick with more aggressive bends, which is easy enough, or making a handle to attach to the tubing on the right side of the cockpit.

I also need about an hour to try and bring order to the chaos of my hangar. After the wreck I sort of just threw stuff around as I took everything apart and dumped new parts onto the bench.

Before you actually make the change from round to square for your axle I would consult the material supplier about the tensile and shear strength on both the round and square stock. You may be right and the square stock is the stronger choice of the two for your application but my machinist background keeps telling me that in most instances that is not going to be the case when the tubing material and wall thickness are the same.

Tensile vs. Shear Strength: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/697:_Tensile_vs._Shear_Strength


Wheel

It's the spreader bar on the gear, so we're talking compression and bending.

Upper wing back together, so let's start covering the lower wing!



Since it's narrow, I'll use the "wrap" method and use one piece of fabric, gluing it at the bow on the trailing edge.



Things are a lot slower than last time I covered. Last time was in the middle of summer at over 100 degrees, and with cold fall weather (it was in the low 70's) it takes a lot longer for the glue to dry.



Gonna run the iron over the glue and put in the patch for the interplane strut before I do the shrinking, put in the rib stitching rivets, and tape.