Doilies, Bearings and The Last Stitch!

 Don Hutchison, Ben Toenders, Henry Reige (lft-rht) applying patches , doilies and finishing tapes.

 Don Hutchison finishing root rib tapes on upper wings.

Henry Riege greasing ball bearings in aileron control sprocket of lower right wing before recovering.

Lower Right Tiger Moth wing identiy plates and markings.

Rick Riewe and Maurice April adding another coat of Poly Brush to ailerons.

Rick Riewe ironing down pinked edges of tapes.

Maurice April pre-measuring stitch spacing for lower right wing...2 " apart for rib #2,3,4,&5; 3" apart for remaining ribs.

Rick Riewe applying the doilies he cut.

 George Inman and Maurice April putting in the final stitches on the lower right wing, all other wings are stitched; with Rick Riewe in the foreground applying doilies..

Vic Prefontaine dropped in and swapped stories...George is stitching 2nd last rib!

Gil Bourrier volunteered to paint the external fittings gloss black.

Doug Render helping his old friend, Henry Riege apply tapes to the upper wing.

Jill working on tapes. Henry Riege saved a ton of work by having us Poly Brush the leading edge section of each tape, stretch it into position to get rid of the bubble created on each side of each rib, clamped the tape to the trailing edge and let that set. Then we went back and Poly Brushed the remaining length of the tape down without stretching it. In this photo you can see the tapes glued down over the leading edge.

George Inman and Maurice April putting in the Last Stitch!! We finished the lower right wing rib stitching May 9th; all wings are now stitched. As Maurice said "Rib stitching was tedious for the first few minutes but then it became relaxing work...the Zen of rib stitching!"