Sunday, January 13, 2013

Labeling Wing Wiring



Not wanting to waste a 60 degree winter day, a little forward progress was made in the shop. The first chore was attaching the mounting standoffs for the electrical connections onto the inboard rib. After playing with electrical, decided it would be a good idea to primer all of the machine countersinks in the spar … so did so with the PTI zinc chromate primer.

While attaching the standoffs onto the left wing, it quickly became evident my stubby Philips head screwdriver was too long for getting onto the mounting screws (plus it required a smaller Philips tip than I had). This required holding the head of the screw with long nose pliers while tightening the standoff. I looked at the rib and realized this would have been easily avoided had the standoffs been attached prior to riveting the rib in place, so I immediately attached the standoffs onto the inboard rib for the right wing.

Builder Tip: I would suggest screwing the standoffs for the electrical connectors onto the left and right wing’s inboard ribs prior to riveting the ribs in place it will make life easier.


The larger snap bushings on order should be here Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest, so even though wires can’t be run through the ribs yet, did make a couple of ground wires and prepped some of ends for the left wing wiring.

One of the play toys procured early on was a Dymo Rhino label machine, which has been used quite a bit making labels to identify small parts in storage containers. One of the reasons it was purchased was because it can also label heat-shrink tubing. Today the first labels were made and have to say, it works great.
The first printed 1/4 inch heat-shrink tubing on a wire to illustrate the size prior to shrinking is sitting on the bottom of the label maker. I was testing the size of the smallest print … very readable.