CLARK COUNTY RADIO CONTROL SOCIETY MEMBER PROJECT PAGE
DAVE ANDERSON'S BENCH MOD "Park Scale" Herr Models Piper Cherokee Page 2
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Well, it all starts with the wing, of course!  And here it is in all it's unfinished glory.  You can see the little nub on the second rib from the the tip - I had already fixed the hole in the leading edge before embarking on this project.  But the fix was really easy - the ribs were fine - just had to replace the broken LE and other minor spars.  I found it was easier to remove the old covering if I heated it up and broke the glue on the Monokote.  Still have some pieces that were more stubborn than the others, but it was all done quickly enough.
Here's a better view of the wing, and you can see the LE repair a little plainer, as well as the pieces of covering still left to remove.  To make the aileron, I will be cutting completely off the one inch wide TE from the second rib off the wingtip, over to the fifth rib.  Once the TE is off, I install a new spar against the shortened ribs and use it as a mount for the hinges on the ailerons!
One problem I had is that the TE is actually hollow, in a sense.  You can see the gap indicated in the circle, so I had an issue on using the TE as it was. . .  it's light, but it need to be strong enough to be used as an aileron.  I considered scrapping the old TE in favor of a solid triangle aileron off-the-shelf at Hobbytown USA, but then thought that perhaps it would still work if I strengthened it strategically.
After cutting the length of TE off the wing, I fashioned a small wedge to place inside the hollow core.  This wedge will be used as a fixed point for the control horn to be mounted, adding strength right where it needs it, and helping to keep the overall weight of the aircraft down!
Here you can see the TE has been removed, the affected ribs are to be shortened even more, and the three dowels.  I couldn't use one long dowel because the old rib pieced were still in place inside the TE.  I could've cut the rib pieces back, or just cut up the dowel.  The arrow shows the first dowel length installed, and the wedge discussed above has already been installed.  I used CA for this assembly.
Here's the TE, now an aileron, with the dowel pieces in place.
In this photo, you can see I plan to install "doublers" on the inside of the second and fifth ribs.  Got this idea from one of Dave Agar's projects - it pays to keep up on the website! I figured those outside ribs needed to be beefier to hold the aileron and keep the integrity of the wing. The doublers will be glued to the existing ribs, extending all the way out past the TE, then sanded to shape.
Those $1 spring clamps at Harbor Freight really come in handy for this!  Perfect for this small job. BTW - you can see the repair on the LE - cheesy, but works just fine!
Now that the doublers are installed and sanded to fit, I test fit the new aileron - looks good! The dowel, incidentally is hardwood.  The aileron. . . balsa.  Anyone detect a problem here?? I surmised I was going to have an issue installing the fiber hinges I planned to use, so I thought that a purchase of a slotting tool would be handy in this project.  I wanted to slot the dowels for the hinge with out damaging the softer balsa.
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