First Wing Opened

After work today I went out to the garage and got a good two hours of work in before the Olympics started.  Leah helped remove ailerons which are now sitting in our apartment waiting for their fabric to be removed.  I got all of the fabric off the left wing and the wood looks OK underneath.  In fact for most of the wing the wood looks great!  Very beautiful and with a little cleaning it will look just fine.  My leading edges are plywood covered and the Ree's did a nice job of adding a small stiffener behind each panel to help prevent the plywood from sagging.  It's worked so far!  Harry and Neal were both nearby so they stopped by to check out the wing.  The root rib needs some attention, but I already knew that.  Since this is the cap on the root of the wing it gets handled a lot during assembly and derigging and it is in rough shape as a result.  Should be a pretty easy piece to replace.  Also there is evidence of past water damange on the leading edge at the root. However it appears on initial inspection that the wood is OK.  I need to get a pin and poke around a little more to make sure.  So all in all I'm pretty satisfied with the wing and hope the other one is as good.  We'll find out tomorrow!

The Wing

 

Wing Root

Leading Edge