Spar shim and wedges on the rib jig

Like I said earlier, the upper wings have a sweep back. In the builders manual it says to shim the front side of the front spar and the rear side of the rear spar .035". It also says to shim the front spar opening on the inside and the rear spar opening on the inside .005".

When I made my wing jig I accidentally made the spar openings a little too far apart so in my particular case I shimmed a little more than the what the builders manual says so I could correct it. My wing jig spar openings are extremely accurate now.

Regardless of my small mistake, the 5 photos below show how I shimmed the openings. I cut up post cards to shim the inside of the spar openings and used brass from Ace hardware to shim the other side.

NOTE: The lower wings on the Baby Great Lakes are straight and not swept. That means when assembling the lower wings the brass shims get removed and a .005" shim (paper) gets put in its place. The paper is so there's still a little wiggle room the spars. It's better to have a loose fit than a tight fit.

NOTE 2: In the first photo you can see where the pencil lines are on the spruce pieces. In the second photo I sanded them down to fit. I no longer do this, I just grind right to the line from the pattern and fit them in.

WEDGES: You can see why the wedges work well. And when switching to the lower wings, the ones without the .035" shim, it makes it easy.