Vans Aircraft RV-12 Build, Section 17: Wing Skins (Part2)

Reference: page 17-02; 9.5 hours

With the wing skins of the RV-12 aircraft ready for installation, it is time to move on to riveting the skin onto the wing structures. There is a note in the plans fro Van's Aircraft about installing the lighting system during this section. So I will be intermingling both the wing skinning and the installation of the lights into the wings during this series.

Most of the steps during this section are repeated on the left and right wings. Therefore, I plan to build both wings at the same time. So there will be pictures of both wings as I work through the process.

For those unfamiliar with Van's Aircraft's RV-12 wings there is a line of flush rivets near the leading edge on the inboard skin. These are pre-dimpled at the factory (all but a couple of holes.) So there is no need for a C-Frame dimpling tool. The dimples can be seen in the picture below.



Step 1: Place a layer of carpet or an old blanket on the work table. Place the wing skeleton upside-down on the table with the leading edge overhanging the edge by two to four inches.

Step 2: Dimple the W-1201-L (and -R) Inbd Wing Skin in two places as shown in Figure 1 on page 17-02 of the plans. Cleco then rivet the inbd wing skin to the bottom of the wing leaving all holes on the outboard edge open as well as the holes called out in Figure 1.









Builder's note: I found by installing the clecos other row of colecos in the leading edge made it much easier to install the CS4-4 flush rivets. See picture below.



Step 3: FinalDrill 3/8 the #30 hole in the W-1203-L Outbd Wing Skin for the tie down ring.





Step 4: Cleco the W-1203-L (and -R) Outbd Wing Skin to the wing skeleleton. Rivet the outbd wing skin to the skeleton leaving open all holes on the inboard and outboard edges, the leading edge holes, and the holes for the W-1216B-l (and -R) Hinge Rib.







Step 5: Cleco the W-1202-l (and -R) Mid Wing Skin to the wing skeleton. Rivet the mid wing skin to the wind skeleton leaving open the 1st holes aft of the leading edge and the holes for the W-1216B-L (and -R).






This was a lot of work! Building both wings at the same time has worked very well.