I have decided I don’t like leading edges. While they are beautiful and shapley, not to mention aerodynamically critical, they are a real pain in the ass to build. The real problem are the rib tips and how they just never want to fit right the first, second, and sometimes third time. But with enough patience, perserverance, and hammering (not really, but yes really), they will come together. After assembling and final drilling the components, everything got deburred, primed, and dimpled.

Of course now that I’ve done this four times, I figured out the easiest way to get the skin to wrap around the ribs is to start on the flat side, then work from end to the other around the profile of the skin. I also had the first “F**k-up” that will be a lasting oops on the project. I managed to drop the bucking bar and it seemingly bounced around the inside of the leading edge before finally dropping right in the bottom with a nice zit on the outside.
It’s not terrible and I was able to very gently hammer a bit back into place. It’ll just remind me that I built the airplane every time I do the preflight!

In other bad news, the fuel tanks gave me a 50/50 success rate. The left tank tested fine after the initial fixes cured. Not a single drop of moisture, which made me happy. This was confirmed after four days of water sitting in the tank.

The right tank wasn’t done fighting. The one rivet on the fuel cap flange continued to drip like I hadn’t even attempted to fix it. And the rather large leak on the front spar continued to leak, albeit a bit slower and farther out on the spar proving I didn’t really fix it but just slowed the exit path. So, again it was drained of 30 gallons of water down the driveway and dried out to prep another fix session. For now, here is the completed bits of the left wing.