I am about finished with all the ribs now and will start assembling wings as soon as my spar materiel arrives, FYI I was trying to find cheaper sitka spruce from someone other than acs and when I inquired at wicks about if they had spar wood Kieth Gibbs their purchasing sales support guy told me they did not carry spar wood anymore, so I asked him if he knew of anyone else who sold or carried sitka spar wood and I was informed by Kieth Gibbs about Aircraft Spruce that and I Quote: Unfortunately they are now the only one that he knows of that deals with spruce. They have a long waiting list, and the word is they are going to stop selling spruce soon as well.
so I guess they will be changing their name to aircraft supplies then?
when I bought my sitka spar wood for making the wing ribs I purchased 1/4"x 5/8" instead of the print recommended 1/4" x 1/2" , just to make the ribs and a little beefier and I didn't think the extra weight penalty wouldn't be that much that I couldn't make it up in another area in a lighter design. because of this I had to steam and pre bend all of my top & bottom cap strips on the 3/4 and full ribs.I steamed them 20 minutes once steam started, this was good on everything except for the bottom cap strip on the full ribs,, with the pre bend jig I made I was able to steam and pre bend 2 at a time, and out of the first two that I tried to pre bend @ 20 minutes steam time one snapped!
I had put them both on the jig and clamped them down with no resistance or issue and when I checked on them a couple hours later one of them had split apart in a 3 inch failure,, so the next time I steamed a couple pieces of wood for the bottom full rib I bumped it up to 35 minutes steam time and did not have any more issues. after steaming the capstrips I let them dry in 72 degrees before attempting to glue up a rib so I am certain they are dry enough for epoxy.
