Submitted by Ted Beck, GlaStar
Locating and drilling the leading edge skin to nose rib flange holes in the GlaStar wing can be a little bit of a challenge since access to hold and align the nose ribs is limited to lightening holes in some areas of the forward spar. In the area of the wing strut beam there is no access at all for holding or aligning the centerline of the nose rib flanges with the pre-drilled holes in the leading edge skins.
I purchased several lengths of 10-32 threaded rod with couplers, sufficient to run the length of one wing. This size rod can be inserted through the small tooling hole located in each nose rib. I also procured a sufficient number of plain nuts so that a nut could be threaded onto the rod on each side of each nose rib. Each nose rib is located perpendicular to the forward spar (before any skins are in place) and then the plain nuts can be moved along the threaded rod until they hold the nose rib in this correct position. The leading edge skins can then be placed over the nose ribs and the alignment of the predrilled holes with the marked line on the nose rib flanges can be checked. If any rib requires position adjustment, its position-locking nuts can be repositioned.
The rod remains in place for the drilling of the holes through the leading edge skins and rib flanges. It needs to be removed only when riveting the nose ribs to the leading edge skins.
