Anyone ever removed wood spars from a Piper?

[Harbi]

I have a set of J-5 wings and I want to remove the spars from one wing. I think they are still good, but would like to clean them up and revarnish. I have everything loose from the rear spar. It will slide down the ribs, but not very easy(Way to hard!). I was hoping I could do one spar at a time, and not have to dismantle the whole wing. The spar would slide out pretty easy, but the ribs like to get hung up on the plywood doublers.
When we replaced my T-Craft spars we just drilled the rivets and removed the tail end of the ribs. Wish piper had a three piece rib. Any insight or thoughts would be appreciated.

Wade
Tok, Alaska

[melndav]

Re: Anyone ever removed wood spars from a Piper?

We have tried to do it that way one time, and even working very carefully we still ended up doing more damage to the ribs than we would have just dimantling the whole wing. By the time you get all of the compression tubes and wires loose you might as well go ahead and do it right since you are going to have to re-square the wing anyway. incidentally, on the last wing we built we made a nail tool out of an old rivet set by cuttting a little slot big enough to hold the head of the nail. It cut out assembly time nearly in half and took away the pounding on those delicate ribs. Good Luck

David

[Harbi]

Re: Anyone ever removed wood spars from a Piper?

Thanks,

I have come to the conclusion that I will have to dimantle the whole wing. I think I will replace the spars instead of trying to refurbish these. Oh well, should be a good winter project.

Wade