OK, I was almost to embarassed to post this.

I was very careful. Maybe too careful.

Anyway, last night after many weeks of work (I'm slow) I put the two wing halves of my 4*60 kit together.

Sometime during the night I got this nagging feeling that something was wrong.

Anyway, this evening I started thinking that the wing was upside down (the flatter part was on top). After looking back through the instructions, I found to my horror that it was.

Can anyone suggest a way to fix the problem? If I seperate the wing halves, the dihedral will still be wrong.

I hate to start over.

Tim

I count as my friends two former AMA presidents. Maynard Hill is one and in a film presentation he pionted out the two perfectly built left wing panels to a plane he was working on. He was working on a right wing to finish the project. Maynard holds over 20 world records! The only person who never makes a mistake is the one that doesn't do anything.

Plan # 1
Cut the wing in half and use the tips to form the center section. This in many cases will be more work and trouble than plan #2.

Plan # 2
Get a wing kit from Sig or cut the necessary parts out for the new replacement.

As a professional woodworker I can tell you it won't be your last mistake. Just always be thinking about the next step.

EXCAP232

It's fixable, cut it in half and make a new dihedral spar. I'm a kit basher, I put dihedral in planes that don't have dihedral. It wont be easy, you could probably build a new wing easier but not cheaper if you have the required tools.

I had decided to get the wing kit from SIG and use this one to practice covering.

Now, they are saying the wing kit is $60. The whole kit was $109.

But, they recommended going to an LHS to get a better price.

Anyway, how would I construct a new dihedral spar. The original dihedral brace was a 3/8" ply piece and its epoxied in with no real hope of removal?

GB

Ghostbear,

bummer,
Listen if you used CA and epoxy to join the wing and you have not yet used the fiberglass tape you may be able to take the wing apart with Ca debonder and a heat gun.

Use the debonder to soften the CA and the heat gun to soften the epoxy holding the dihedral spar.

Its worth a try and fairly inexpensive

heres a cheap and cheerful option.. cut the wing in half down the join, take the end template and make 4 new ribs, use these to make a new flat center section with highly leaned in edges, 2 ribs on the fuz, next 2 are leaned in ( they have to be taller to account for the lean ) so that when you mate up the old wings you have the correct dihedral. Of course the section should have a new brace running all the way through it and into the old wing "tips". the old brace half's can be removed with a heat gun and a screw in the brace with much pulling, either that or get a drill out followed by a needle file to make a new slot.
I did something similar with a glider, only my center section was a solid balsa block, and it wasn't because i made a mistake

If you have the sheets all your parts came out of in the kit, You can trace the dihedral brace onto a new section of ply and cut it out! Good Luck!

Regards
Malk

I just used epoxy, so I will try and loosen it. I kept all the parts sheets for future use, so I'm ok there.

One local hobby store (who thinks I'm stupid) quoted me a price of $59.95 for the wing kit. A second quoted me $45.

I'm going to keep the kit on order in case I can't get the wing apart.

Thanks for all the ideas everyone. I was fairly devestated when I figured out I had just wasted 8 weeks of work (like I said, I don't go very fast).

IF there are any other innovative ideas, please post them.

Can you describe how they are joined?

Is it a brace on each side of the spar, or a joiner that runs inside the spars and shear webbing at the center of the wing? Probably the latter.

Man....just cut the thing in half with a good fine tooth saw okay? now step two, use a dremel tool to grind out the dihedral brace. wont take more than an hour all together........even ifn ya move slow. Use yer parts template like dude says, and cut a new brace. Done. thats the easiest , simplest, best thing, that i could thonk of. In terms of money, work, and still havin fun! Dont sweat it, we all do stuff like that. I pulled my masking off my stuka canopy the other day, to find that I had not painted the silver dash! GASP! oh well......
d

Is there any reason I can't skip down to the fuselage and keep working?

I'm going to try and separate the wing this weekend, but I have a new wing kit on order in case fixing it becomes unworkable.

I'd like to keep going on the kit. The weather is improving here.

Also, the wing brace is a piece of thin ply (one of the earlier posts shows the outline of it) which joins against the main spar.

GB

If it is just ply on either side of the spar then it seems much easier to fix. Just cut the braces, and rejoin with new braces right over the existing ones. No real loss in strength.

Go get a new wing kit. It should come with braces. This will save you time, material and grief. A plane will only fly well if it is built well.

Dude, I have an extra wing...been crashed but maybe you can salvage what you need? You pay shipping its yours, just a thought.

I managed to seperate the wing halves using a heat gun and a coping saw.

Didn't do much damage to the ribs.

However, the dihedral angle is off and I don't want to try and remove the W-1 ribs and replace them since that will mess up all the sheeting and everything.

So, if there is not a safe way to "shim" in the dihedral angle (and use a dihedral brace, I'm going to go ahead and get a new wing kit.

Thoughts?

I appreciate the offer, but I'm determined to build this d*&m thing myself, even if I have to buy a whole nuther kit.

Way to go, Ghostbear !

there is a way to shim the dihedral angel.

1. place wax paper over plans,

2. next pin one wing half down.

3. now set other half next to pinned wing and raise wing tip to correct hieght for dihedral angle. after making sure everything is correct reglue wings together then continue sheeting and consruction.

PS if it is a "little off don't worry. In all the years I've been building I've never seen a model that was 100% perfect yet amazingly enough they all flew great.

And if you have already ordered the wing kit then you can build a "spare" and swap wings if you are not satisified with the original at a later date. Just my .02

The sheeting is already done, that's the primary reason I'd like to avoid messing with the inside ribs.

So, there will be a large, /\ shape gap if I do what you recommend. Can I insert a rib-shaped "shim" to fill in the gap?

Fill as best you can. then use light fiberglass cloth over the top when you are done and the wing is covered you won't know the difference.

cut a new w1 rib about twice as thick as the original, glue to one wing half, now you can sand a wedge shape to the desired dihedral angle, make a new dihedral brace from the plans and join the wing halves. Go flying, have fun. I have made the same fuse side before, joined the wing upside down, made a banana fuselage once. you build long enough and you will make all the mistakes at least once!

oooh, thats pretty much what i said ages ago, but a bit simplier

I think this is half the fun of kits. I did this to one of my elevators on my ultimate bip profile. I took a small saw and went right along the edge and cut it in half. Then I was able to glue it back the right way. I dont think 1-2 mm will make too much of a difference in flight.

There is no reason why you couldn't build a rib-shaped shim either out of balsa or ply. Cut the shim rib out of material that is as wide as the gap at its widest, then sand it into a wedge. This is easily done if you build a jig to sand it on. It doesn't have to be perfect. Slip the shim in, and fill any gaps with epoxy and microballoons. Easy! I did this to take the dihedral out of my trainer wing. Be sure to glass the joint when you are done, and your are good as new.

Got the wing fixed the other night.

Thanks for all the help.

What's a microballoon?