Wing Construction

[Steve Goodwin]

My first time build is the Peter Miller Ballerina, all's going well. I shall be starting the wing soon, whilst reading various build blogs I have seen the word "Webs" mentioned.

What are they?

[Ron Gray]

A web is a thin film joining two members (think webbed feet on a duck) and in wing construction is the thin sheet stuck vertically (vertical grain) between the top and bottom spar strips.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Ron Gray

[Peter Miller]

Ron has described it perfectly.

 

The web has two purposes. It keeps the spars apart which increases the bending strength of the wing.  It also seals the D box formed by the leading edge, leading edge sheet and the spar which make the wing resting twisting

[kc]

On the Ballerina and many other designs it's possible to put the webs in front of or behind the spars which makes little difference in strength - however it's easier to put the webs in front of the spar which then allows access to the spars to use clips to hold down the top sheeting.   So you put the webs in BEFORE putting on the top sheeting.  

If you can find a ruler or strip of thin stuff with width the exact height of the webs  35mm in this case, it's easy to cut off loads of strips for webs quickly.  Just cut a sheet of 1/16 into numerous bits 35mm and  cut to width later to suit the exact space between ribs ( they vary by design and also by minor errors so custom cut to width when fitting. )    Grain is vertical as Ron said and disregard people who say otherwise.   ( big discussion on this some years back when a Whittaker design showed grain horizontal and majority said that's wrong! )

I think the Ballerina instructions have very precise order of assembly for building a wing - follow Peter's instructions step by step and it works out perfectly!    A little different to other peoples designs - putting the lower LE sheeting down first allows clearance for the curvature of wing ribs I seem to remember.   Just follow Peter's method!

Edited September 16, 2021 by kc