Typhoon Wing Work

So I got the Typhoon wings in from the shed, as I need to start looking at how the cowl fits, and as that makes in and around the centre section of the wing, I need to have that near for testing.

Get it in the workshop and...

Hmmm, yes it is a bit of pain.  OK plan B then - cut it up with a circular saw...

This was always something I was going to do at some stage, to make the aircraft more transportable and storeable (is that a word? it is now!), plus the wings are in a bit of a sorry state.  There's a couple of creases where it looks like she's had a wing in the dirt at some point, some veneer had lifted, the TE was a bit bent here and there....so this'll make it easy all round.

The flap servo boxes were odd...not even tied in to the bottom skins! 

Same on the ailerons..not great : 

I then started removing hardware from the retract wells.  Here's I have pulled about 2 pounds worth of half inch ply that is heading for the bin: 

The tip panels then needed slots cutting in for a new joiner / spar system - note that the full depth ply spar only runs into the tips by about 5 inches - again not what I wanted to see, but glad I've found it :

Similarly, the centre section gets gutted a bit for joiner assembly access.  Here, the spar runs full depth and width - lovely : 

So the joiner then - 38mm OD aluminium. Oh yes. Quite cheap and quickly delivered by SLEC : 

I chopped the joiner in half (1.5 feet per side) and chopped the phenolic outer into quarters (9 inches each).  The first of the outers was then joined to a 3mm liteply back plate that'll act as a shear web in the tip panel, and the glue area was increased by using half inch triangular section balsa.  The whole lot bonded with gorilla glue : 

Dried and solid now, and the other three outers in the background with their balsa end-caps added :

A quick test-fit in the tip panel, nice and tight : 

Laid into the tip section with the spar inside to check angles: 

OK, enough for now, time to get the first side glued up!