The wingtips on an RV are non structural fiberglass parts, they act like a “cap” to cover up the end of the wings and also reduce the drag. However lost of builders have reported that the tips crack after some time due to high air pressure during flight and also its a convenient place people try to help push the aircraft on the ground not knowing its only fiberglass.
I have decided to glass in extra wood strips on the inside to give it some added strength, I would hate to see a crack in my nice paint job after only a few hours 🙂 I rounded the wood strips at the ends to make the glass transition nicely with the inside surface.
About 4 layers of glass on each strip.
I used liquid nails to hold the strips in place whilst laying the glass over the top. Both the top and bottom of each wingtip was reinforced.
Once these cured overnight I could immediately feel that they were much firmer and I could not push in the fiberglass as easy as before. Pretty happy I did this even though the plans don’t call for it.
I received my Nav lights back from Ztron this week as they got a firmware update. This was a perfect time to attache the wingtips to the aircraft and mount the lights.
I needed to remove the paint from the countersunk holes because the screws caused the paint to bubble.
Wingtips on and looking great
Using the template supplied with the lights I marked out the position and started drilling the holes.
Rather than using silicone to seal the lights to the tip I tried a few different channel rubbers, that was able to do the job. I also used rivnuts for the screws rather that normal nuts.
rv6aj 
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