Broken rib stitching

[Dana]

Tony, what were you repairing? You had poly-fiber first, then repaired over it with Stewart? How did you attach the new finishing tape?

[1600vw]

Someone climbed into my airplane when I had the canopy off. They then got out on the wrong side and broke a rib. We had to cut the fabric on the rib, then scarf joint the rib. My A&P made one of the best scarf joints I have ever seen. This man had never worked with wood and he did a great job. I was amazed how big the scarf joint had to be. He explained it had to be so many inches long or something like this. The break was only a cracked rib but by the time we where done we had cut the fabric 3/4 the wing cord length.

After the repair to the rib, we had to stitch the fabric back together. We had to put cap strips back on the ribs, then glue the fabric to this. We then put a strip I will call a cap strip over the stitched fabric. Then rib stitched through this. Then a cap strip went over the ribs stitching.

We used the Stewards system and it worked great. This was so easy to use and I would do it again in a min. I should have made a video showing this repair.

I also had a hole in my fabric. Before I purchased my airplane someone crawled under it when it was in the trailer they kept her in. This person had a screw driver in their back pocket and put a big hole in the fabric on the underside of the tail feathers. The hole was about 5x5 in size. I scuffed up the paint with some MEK and sand paper then used the Stewards System to repair this hole. Again it worked great.

Dana if we lived closer I would come and help you. Just jump in and start this. You will find its real easy to repair. You will be saying, I want to recover these wings by the time you are done. Its that easy. The Stewards System makes it such a non event you will be wanting to recover the complete airplane.

For paint I will be using auto paint. My repair is going on 4 years, no cracks runs or errors. lol Auto paint has come a long way from days of past. Nothing was added to this paint to make it flexible and it has not cracked at all. I even push on the fabric trying to crack it and have not been able to do so.

Keep us posted as to your repair and post some pics. I love pics.

We used two needles when repairing this. One was bent or curved and the other was straight. I went to a local upholstery fabric repair shop and picked up my rib stitching thread. My A&P IA told me to go get it there. They ask how much do you need, then pulled off what I need from a huge spool and handed it to me. They did not charge me anything for it. I believe they gave me 30 feet of it.