RE: Shear Webs - always vertical grain?
Crate Cruncher-
This wing is for the Great Planes BLT Park Flyer. It has to be as light as possible. The wing has sheeting only over the 2 center bays. The webs use a lot less material than if I sheeted the entire wing. Also, since this is an easy-flying park trainer, it won't be engaging in many balsa-splitting maneuvers anyway.
As you can see in my photos above, I simply glued the shear webs to the back of the spars. I could have saved a little weight by making smaller webs and putting them in the middle of spars, but as for the strength, my impression is that it wouldn't make too much difference.
James