T45 Swallow - wing joiner, help wanted

[Stephen Toy]

Hello All,

I've been building slope soarers for several years and have just decided to try my hand at scale. Just purchased the Tony Slocombe T45 Swallow plan from Traplet and I'm ready to start work on the wings but, I'm not quite sure how and when to cut the wing joiner slot in the ribs to get the 5 deg dihedral. Do I sandwhich the ribs together to cut the slot for the wing joiner, if so how do I align the ribs? Any help would be most appreciated.

Cheers.

Steve0110

[chris williams]

Not a procedure I'm familiar with, Steve, but you could try a PM to Steve Fraquet who might have some experience with this model...

[john greenfield]

Stephen

I do not know the Tony Slocombe plan but it is normal for the wing joiners to be between the top and bottom spars. If this is the case with your model the easiest procedure is to cut the slots for the wing joiner slightly oversize and then prop the wing up at the correct dihedral whilst keeping the wing joiner horizontal. Tack glue the joiner in place and then add fillets above and below the joiner to fill in the gap between the joiner and spars. In this way the loads are properly transferred from the joiner to the spars. It would then be normal to add webbing between the top and bottom spars to box the joiner in.

Hope the above makes sense to you.

AEB

[Barry_Cole]

The dreaded ass webbing strikes again

BC

[Peter Balcombe]

Stephen,
Just to put in my two penny worth,
When building woodies, I normally build the wing up from the bottom spar, adding ribs, leading/ trailing edge etc to get the basic structure in place. I also make up a wing joiner box assembly as a ply sheet sandwich (containing the joiner strip or joiner box) with the joiner member set at the correct dihedral angle and exiting at the root end at the correct height. This joiner assembly is made to be the same width as the main spars and the correct finished height to fit snugly between the top & bottom spars. Thus if I have a 1/4" width spar, I would set the 1/8" width brass joiner box in a recess cut in 1/8" ply, sandwiched between 2 pieces of 1/16" ply.
Next, I normally add front and rear ply webbing between the bottom spar and a temporarily inserted section of top spar material between all ribs over the joiner box length, plus a rib bay. Remember not to glue to the temporary top spar section!
Then, carefully cut the portion of rib out between the top & bottom spars in the appropriate number of root end ribs, leaving a U channel into which the joiner box assembly can slide. (You will probably also need to carefully remove the rib glue residue from the upper surface of the lower spar.
The joiner box assembly can now be epoxied in the slot at the same time as the top spar is fitted. This ensures that the joiner box is firmly attached to the spars and the webbing.
I usually also use a ply web on the normal webbing side for a couple of rib bays outboard of the joiner box length, then transitition to the normal vertical grain balsa webbing.
I hope this helps.

[terry white]

Peter,
Excellent tutorial, that's the way I usually do it. Also by making up the joiner sandwich for both wings in this way the dihedral angle has got to come out the same for both wings. I like to make both wings together making the same part for both wings as I go.I find it much quicker this way.
Terry.

[Barry_Cole]

The dreaded ass webbing strikes again

BC

John, That is cheating......

BC

[Peter Balcombe]

Stephen,
I have just found a photo of one of my joiner boxes under construction.
It shows the piece-parts ready to be epoxied together with the central brass box in its slot at the correct angle.
Just make sure you put it into the wing the right way up!!
( I always slide a joiner into the box to check when fitting it)

[Stephen Toy]

Thanks guys, most helpful!

I'll give it a try by building a dummy setup first using spare ribs W1-W3.

Once again, thanks to you all!

Kind regards.

Steve