Smyth Sidewinder

[thom]

Anyone build one? Just bought a project. Have to skin the wings from main spar to trailing edge on bottom of wings. No room to get your hands and bucking bar in. Glue and blind rivets would make lit simple.

[Don January]

I've no hands on with the Sidewinder, but if you surf over to Homebuiltairplane site I'm sure there may be some help with your build. the words Glue and blind rivet dont seem like they match but maybe your seeing something that may have been done? good luck. Don

[thom]

I've no hands on with the Sidewinder, but if you surf over to Homebuiltairplane site I'm sure there may be some help with your build. the words Glue and blind rivet dont seem like they match but maybe your seeing something that may have been done? good luck. Don

The Bede airplanes, Used Proseal as a adhesive and alum.. 1/8"Avex pop rivets. I think the jet model did the same. The skins on the BD4 were glued on with contact cement and no rivets. Bede said you could drill all the rivets back out after the proseal has set , I don't think anyone did it.

Would like to talk to someone who has built a Sidewinder and find out how they did it. If the plans had said to turn the first. 6 ribs flange toward the root and the last 5 flanges out board towards the tip, would have been very easy to r.ivet with AN rivets. What makes it even harder the rear spar flanges face forward, makes it 10 time worse. Mr. Smyth must laugh every time someone has to rivert the bottom skin on.
Tom

[Barrier]

Anyone build one? Just bought a project. Have to skin the wings from main spar to trailing edge on bottom of wings. No room to get your hands and bucking bar in. Glue and blind rivets would make lit simple.

Hi Tom
My son Sebastien and me are finishing our Sidewinder in France.
We still have some fairings to do and the paint. You can see some pictures in the Sidewinder Yahoo group.

We have chosen to rivet the bottom rear skin in last.
It is possible to use plain rivets everwhere on the leading edge and on the rear top skin but it is not possible to use plain rivets everywhere to close the rear bottom panel.
We followed Gerry Smyth instructions and started by riveting the tip rib first an progressing toward the root rib by peeling the skin. we used 1/8 Avdel pop rivets in places hard to reach (approximatively 20 places) and are very pleased of the result.
Try to minimise a maximum the use of Avdel rivets.
We are very confidents with Avdel rivets because we have use more tan 5000 of them on our Zenith wings and very few were changed after 1500 hours flying time.

I hope this mail will help you and, please, post a maximum of photos on the Yahoo group.

Yours sincerely.

Noël Barrier
EAA 87619

[thom]

Hi Tom
My son Sebastien and me are finishing our Sidewinder in France.
We still have some fairings to do and the paint. You can see some pictures in the Sidewinder Yahoo group.

We have chosen to rivet the bottom rear skin in last.
It is possible to use plain rivets everwhere on the leading edge and on the rear top skin but it is not possible to use plain rivets everywhere to close the rear bottom panel.
We followed Gerry Smyth instructions and started by riveting the tip rib first an progressing toward the root rib by peeling the skin. we used 1/8 Avdel pop rivets in places hard to reach (approximatively 20 places) and are very pleased of the result.
Try to minimise a maximum the use of Avdel rivets.
We are very confidents with Avdel rivets because we have use more tan 5000 of them on our Zenith wings and very few were changed after 1500 hours flying time.

I hope this mail will help you and, please, post a maximum of photos on the Yahoo group.

Yours sincerely.

Noël Barrier
EAA 87619


Thanks for the reply. I have made a few bucking bars with a 1/2" hole drilled and threaded. I have worked out a way of riveting From rib 6 to the tip by screwing a set of 12" extensions on the bucking bar. So am able to use AN rivets .Shooting from rib 6 to the wing root number 1 rib is the way you did. So hope to use all AN rivets. But if I have to use a pop rivet ordered a adhesive called Sikaflex 299i, so will glue and pop rivet. Sat there and thought about how to do this for a couple weeks before I came upon the answer. So will work from rib 6 backwards toward the tip rib, and number 6 to rib one toward the root rib.