[Stuart Grant]

I am finalizing flight control hookup and installed the wings for the first time so I could match drill the flaperon torque tubes. No seals are installed on the sides of the fuselage yet. The left wing went in all the way but the right wing was about 1/2" shy of the spar holes lining up. I was able to get things in far enough to do the match drilling successfully and pulled things apart and put the wings back in the rack.

The friend that was helping by carrying the spar end of the wing suggested that I file the sharp edges of the main spar a bit because the were tough on his skin and I said "no, no you cant do that." I do see that the instructions say "if the stub spar interferes with installation of the wing the stub spar may require local dressing with a file." After moving the fuselage back into my garage I noticed some big scratches on the bottom of the slot where the main spars had slid in. There were also scratches on the faces of one the spars. Maybe this is a question for Van's Tech Support but I am wondering if it is OK to ease the sharp edges of the main spar ends with a file to reduce scratching? I plan to install and remove the wings many, many times.

 

[thiggins]

I’d take pictures and ask Vans, but smoothing the edges is pretty standard.
See section 5 (again and again and…).

 

[PhatRV]

On my RV8, after I inserted the wings to drill the alignment hole, after removing the wings, there were scratches.

I carefully wet sanded with 320 grit sandpaper to smooth down the scratches. Not the entire spar, just on the scratch lines to smooth down the sharp edges. You will have to ask Vans tech support but I think they will say the same thing.

 

[Stuart Grant]

Easing edges of spars...

Thank you for the responses. I am happy that Van's Tech support also answered my inquiry about rounding the edges at the ends of spars by about 1/16" within a few hours: "Yes, you can (and should) radius the ends of the spars."