National Aeronca Association Bulletin Board

Gas welding is easy but slow, Mig weld is fast but sloppy, Tig gets you the best of both worlds, Fast, neat, and(with practice), easy.

I smell an IP ban.....

JOE, kill 'em!!

Just did!

Wag Aero/safe air has the screws and nails. Aircraft tech support has the screws, but don't know about the nails.
Jerry, if you don't log out at work, might not let you log in from home. Not sure why it only lets you be a guest from your home computer.

Hehe, that was over a year ago.....Feb '05


I think I had Cookies off or something. Not sure. Really, I just hit the forum at work nowadays. I mean, its still 'work material' right?

Just thought I would chime in here. We had the discussion not too long ago but it bears repeating - rib stitching is not an approved method of attaching fabric to wings on Champs. You may be able to talk a FSDO into a field approval but it is unlikely.

Cashmere Aviation STC applies to all Aeronca 7 series Champs, from 7AC thru 7EC, along with most Champion built variants, and some Citabrias, regardless of rib thickness. The Bellanca/ American Champion factory type rivet is the one that is not legal on pre 1967 thinner ribs, as it is a larger rivet.

I purchased a partially completed project and the wings have a mixture of the .032 and .020 ribs. Since the new heavier ribs have larger holes than the old ribs should I use the pop rivets on the new ribs and use screws on the old ribs? Between the two wings there are seven of the .020 ribs.

Henry,

I would almost think about replacing the older .020 ribs with the newer ones.

You can recoup much of the replacement cost by selling the old ones either here on this forum or on Ebay or Barnstormers.

Joe

Joe,

The wings are just about ready for covering. The .020 ribs are in good to excellent shape. It would take some doing to replace the old ribs but it is not an insurmountable task.

Henry,

If the ribs are on the outer part of the wings then might think about it, otherwise would look at other options. Would hate to have to tear down a almost ready wing just to replace this small amount.

Sad that the previous owner did not look ahead and do this when he was building the wings up in the first place.

Joe

Joe,

After close examination I find that there are no .020 ribs in the right wing. There is only one old rib and it is a heavy aileron bay end rib.

The left wing has four .020 ribs and they are located at position 4,5,6 & 7 (counting the root or butt rib as one.)

Thanks for your input,
Henry

Howdy Henry, how's the project going? You can't use pop-rivets on the .020 ribs, so that leaves a couple different options. First, you could use screw's in the .020 ribs and pop-rivets in the .032 ribs. Second option is to drill a new set of holes in the .032 ribs to accept pk-screws, and then re-drill the .020 ribs so all the holes line up and have the same size bump under the fabric.

nkh

Thanks for everyones input on the ribs. I talked to Bill Pancake and he said "do it right and replace the ribs" There are only four .020 ribs and they are in the 4, 5, 6 and 7th position. So...new .032 ribs it will be. Then I will have four .020 ribs if anyone is interested.

Henry,

There was a gent on Barnstormers looking for ribs. Might look there and see if he is still looking.

Joe