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Wooden Cub Wing Ribs

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Jim Dickinson

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I have to say I am stoked right now. After several weeks time, off and on, about three hours ago, I pulled my first, full size, wood truss, Cuby type, wing rib out of the jig. I've still have to hole saw the two inch lightening hole in the plywood front area and sand off the gusset protrusions. ---It weighs the same as an original 1946 J3 {shorter} aileron, aluminum truss rib! I made this one with spruce cap strips table sawed out of a spruce 2X4, yes, they meet the appropriate aircraft wood spec. The front plywood piece is made of Fir ACX plywood and the gussets are 1/16 Birch Aircraft plywood, the glue is West Systems 105 epoxy. This is a test piece, I am very satisfied with it, even in its raw state it's already lighter than the same size, original Cub full rib! I will lighten it further by using Marine BS1088 Grade Okume plywood, as used by Unlimited Hydroplane restorers, in both the front piece and the gussets. It took me a long time to make the jig, gluing the rib up was easy. I'm going to further modify the jig, yea, more time, when I'm done I think I can turn out two ribs a day at room temperature, for proper glue drying time. For me, this will be the least expensive and the lightest option of wing ribs for my "Experimental" J2 revival. Yes!!!!
 

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