Wing spar spacer bars

[slscott715]

What is everybody doing about their wing spar spacer bars? Is there somewhere you can buy 1/8" X 1/2" bar stock or do you have to cut them from a sheet? I haven't been able to find any bar stock in that dimension on ACS but I may be overlooking it.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Wicks has it, for sure. Looks to be $0.90/foot at the moment:

http://aircraftproducts.wicksaircraft.com/item/aircraft-aluminum-metals/6061-t6-aluminum-bar/br1-8x1-2-t6

[slscott715]

That's excellent, Chris. Thank you so much! I really didn't want to cut all those from a sheet.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

I don't blame you! I cut my spar caps from sheet. Man, what a pain!

[BTAZ]

I found a good quantity of 1.25" x 1/8" 6061 "drops" around 3' long at the local metal supplier.

At $1.79 a pound, it was worth a few hours of ripping them up the middle on my band saw and milling them down to width.

I think I bought about 10 lbs. worth and ended up with at least a dozen extras. I found them incredibly useful as 1/8" shims during the rest of the build.

[davzLSA]

I would have liked to have found a place like that near me.

[JBC]

Onlinemetals.com can custom cut 4130 sheet for you. You pay for the sheet, the cutting and the shipping however.
New guy
John Ciolino
Patrol QB, #P342

[davzLSA]

I have an idea for the spacer bars for the wing. I think I am going to mill my bars from a solid piece of aluminum. I have a mill so I my as well put it to good use.

[Ski]

I'm also going to make the spacer bars for my Patrol on a CNC mill. I plan on milling in the step as well for the bars that butt up to 2 cap strips on one side but need to sit on top of one strip on the other side. If doing that be sure to use an endmill with a corner radius. I'm going to use one with a .02" corner rad. I'm also planning on drilling the rib attach angle holes in undersize on the mill as well. I'll get the rib attach angles lazer cut or waterjet so all the holes should line up and I'll drill everything to size at assembly with a piloted drill bit. Just throwing some ideas out there.

[geraldmorrissey]

I milled my Patrol spacer bars all at once. Before you tear down your setup, mill the spar web splice reinforcements and the root spacers to insure everything is the same height. I used a guage that I cut from a page of Sport Aviation that measures about .0025 to check for gaps between the capstrips and spacer bars/web splice/root spacers. Have not heard anything more on the one piece capstrip/spacer bar/reinforcements detail part. Hope it's in the works.
Gerry
Patrol #30

[sjt]

I used a 14 inch cut off saw with a special blade.

Spacers can be made fairly uniform. However, I used rubber bands to make everything tight. The cap strip holes are drilled undersize #40. I then used a rivet thru the 40 hole to cinch up cap strips to spacer bars.

The picture does not show it but there are rubber bands on the #40 rivets on the underside. The rivets are just thru the capstrip . The rivet is just used to pull capstrips toward one another - not thru the web.

tenyru.jpgsaw.jpg
bracket.jpg

[geraldmorrissey]

I built a set of these clamps that brought the capstrips and spacer bars, reinforcements etc to a contact condition. Kept the capstrips nice and straight.